Ghana has introduced a mandatory requirement for applicants seeking leases on public lands to pay at least 70 percent of the assessed market value upfront, as the government moves to overhaul a land administration system long criticised for opacity and undervaluation of state assets.
Deputy Minister of Lands and Natural Resources Alhaji Yusif Sulemana announced the new premium framework at a press conference in Accra on Wednesday, March 11, following Cabinet’s approval of recommendations from a committee that spent several months reviewing public land transactions.
The exercise assessed 8,160 public land lease applications submitted between 2017 and 2024, resulting in the cancellation of uncompleted, non-compliant, and suspect transactions. A temporary ban on public land allocations imposed during the review has now been lifted, with all services resuming immediately under the new procedures.
Under the revised framework, the remaining 30 percent of a leased land’s assessed value will be structured as ground rent paid over the duration of the lease, replacing previous arrangements that critics said consistently undervalued state-owned land and generated inadequate revenue for the public purse.
The Deputy Minister said no public land will be allocated going forward without prior written approval from the Minister for Lands and Natural Resources, adding a direct layer of ministerial oversight to every transaction.
The ministry and the Lands Commission (LC) have also revised the Public Land Application Form, widely known as Form 5, which will now serve as the single mandatory instrument for all public land applications nationwide. The revised form will be published on the Lands Commission’s website for electronic download and submission.
To improve pricing transparency, the ministry has compiled market values for public lands across estates throughout the country. The Lands Commission will also publish a region-by-region list of all applications reviewed during the recent exercise, beginning with Greater Accra Region, to ensure full public accountability over how state land was allocated in the review period.
A Public Land Protection Task Force, pending formal inauguration, has been established to prevent encroachment and halt unauthorised developments on state lands. It will draw members from the Ministry of Lands, the Ministry of Works Housing and Water Resources, the Ghana Police Service, and private sector experts, operating under the Lands Commission Act 2008 and Land Act 2020.
On financing the digital overhaul of land records, the government has approved 100 percent retention of the Lands Commission’s Internally Generated Funds (IGF), with 67 percent of those funds earmarked specifically to fund a national land administration digitalisation project aimed at reducing human interference in transactions and modernising records management.
