President John Dramani Mahama has announced that government will soon lay before Parliament the Divestiture of Public Property Bill, aimed at providing a clear legal framework to regulate the sale, transfer or privatisation of state-owned assets to enhance economic efficiency and protect the public interest.

According to the president, the proposed legislation will require parliamentary approval before any public property, particularly public lands, can be sold or transferred. He stressed that no public land transaction would be processed at the Lands Commission without prior ratification by Parliament.

“And so any public land processing will not be processed at the Lands Commission unless it is ratified in Parliament. This will stop the rampant sale of government assets,” President Mahama stated on Wednesday evening during an engagement with the Ghanaian diaspora in Lusaka, Zambia.

The interaction formed part of President Mahama’s three-day state visit to Zambia at the invitation of President Hakainde Hichilema.

President Mahama cited the Tema Oil Refinery (TOR) as an example, noting that the refinery had resumed operations after attempts by the previous administration to hand it over to a private entity for 15 years without sufficient public oversight.

“What say do the people have? One government can just mortgage public property without the approval of the people’s representatives,” he remarked.

He explained that once the Public Property Divestiture Bill is passed, any decision to auction public land, sell government-owned land or divest state factories would require parliamentary scrutiny and approval.

“If Parliament thinks it is fair, they will approve it. If they think it is not fair, they will not. And if they don’t approve it, it can’t happen,” the president said, adding that he had tasked the Attorney-General to work on the necessary legal framework.

Touching on land administration, President Mahama disclosed that government is introducing blockchain technology to digitise land records at the Lands Commission. He said the move would address longstanding challenges with land registration, title processing and multiple sales of the same land.

He noted that many land disputes arise because buyers fail to conduct proper searches at the Lands Commission, leading to situations where land is sold by unauthorised persons.

“Digitisation will allow the Lands Commission to track the history of every parcel of land — who owned it and who currently owns it — so buyers can be confident they are dealing with the rightful owner,” he explained.

On public lands, President Mahama revealed that a committee established by government had completed a comprehensive audit and mapping of public lands across the country. He said several leases that had not been fully processed were cancelled, describing them as cases where public lands had been “distributed and looted”.

He cited instances where prime government lands in Accra were acquired for as little as GH¢150,000 and later resold for up to US$2 million.

“In some cases, people have already built and are living in these houses. It would be difficult to demolish them,” he said. “Where titles have already been processed, we are asking them to pay the true value of the land.”

However, the president stressed that transactions still in process at the time his administration took office had been halted, with such lands being reclaimed by the state.

“Land could not have been sold at GH¢140,000 in Airport Residential or similar prime areas,” he noted, adding that government is putting in place measures to ensure reclaimed public lands are protected from future abuse.