The Police Administration has denied an allegation made by the Chief Director of the Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources that the Police Service hires land guards to reclaim and preserve its lands at a meeting of a parliamentary committee on July 10, 2023.
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The Administration has expressly indicated that this accusation is untrue, unjustified, and unsupported and should be handled as such.
“The Police Service has never hired languards to retake or guard its lands, and never will. Contrary to popular belief, the Service has recently stepped up its anti-languard operations in areas where these landguards have a negative impact on locals. This increased effort won’t end until those responsible for these unlawful acts are brought to justice.
“We wish to reassure the public that the Police Service, working in partnership with other security agencies, remains committed to upholding the rule of law and ensuring public safety and security at all times; and we will continue to count on the support of the good people of Ghana in this regard.”
The Chief Director of the Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources, Professor Patrick Agbesinyale, said that a land guard has been hired to defend state lands, according to Alhassan Suhuyini, the Member of Parliament for Tamale North.
Suhiyini claimed that this was discovered during a meeting between the Ministry and the Lands and Forestry Committee of Parliament.
On Monday, July 17, he cautioned against engaging with someone whose activities have been banned when addressing journalists in Parliament.
He added that the Committee is asking to be informed of the details of the aforementioned deal.
“In our interaction, the Chief Director of the Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources shockingly disclosed that the Ministry had resorted to hiring a land guard to recover and defend public lands.
Remember that the President is entrusted with the responsibility of protecting these territories on behalf of the Ghanaian people. The lands are vested in the president, and the Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources is the Ministry tasked with the responsibility of overseeing these lands. I am sure that the Constitution’s framers are aware that the president is the Commander-In-Chief of the Ghana Armed Forces and that he is seized with the capacity to ensure that these lands are protected for our common use.
So it surprised us when the Ministry informed us that the state lacked the ability to protect these areas that were placed in trust, forcing them to be protected by people whose activities were illegal.
What will happen to the average Ghanaian who wants to buy land and faces the difficulty of land guards if the Ghana Armed Forces and the Police are unable to secure their own lands and are forced to deploy land guards? The Chief Director’s admission that the person who is engaged genuinely has a set-up that the state cannot compete with was disgraceful once more.
The Ghana Armed Forces (GAF) have also referred to claims that military terrain is protected by landguards as being untrue.
This information was provided in a statement signed by Brigadier-General Emmanuel Aggrey-Quashie, the Director General of Public Relations for GAF, and released on Monday, July 17.
The statement read, “It is inconceivable that GAF cannot protect its own lands and instead indulges in an illegality by using the services of land guards, a proscribed activity.”
“GAF finds it deplorable that unfounded claims made by the Chief Director of the Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources, Prof. Patrick Agbesinyale, at a hearing of a Parliamentary Committee on July 10, 2023, led to news stories.
“We want to emphasize that this allegation, which Hon. Alhassan Suhuyini, Member of Parliament for Tamale North, repeated to the media, is false and shouldn’t be believed,” the statement reads.
Additionally, the Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources rejected the idea of hiring land guards for its operations.
