On Friday, February 16 when officials of the Lands Commission appeared before the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of Parliament, a member of the committee Peter Yaw Kwakye-Ackah asked them to explain whether the good performance of their internally generated funds (IGFs) last year could be attributed to the ‘sale’ of government prime lands.
But the chair of the Committee, James Kluste Avedzi interjected and disallowed the question from being answered against the backdrop that the use of ‘sale’ in asking the question was improper.
Mr Avedzi argued that the commission does not sell lands, rather they lease them hence the need for Mr Ackah to reframe his question.
Mr Ackah had asked, “Lands Commission, you did very well, your IGF increased substantially and I would like to know if that is a result of the sale of government prime lands.”
But Mr. Kluste Avedzi interjected saying “Honourable member, I will not allow that question to be answered, they don’t sell lands, they lease lands so if you can reframe the question I will ask them to respond.”
Mr Ackah accordingly reframed the question.
“Mr Chairman you have helped me in that, was it as a result of the leasing of the government prime lands?” he asked.
Answering the reframed questions, Deputy Executive Secretary of the Lands Commission, Jones Ofori-Boadu, attributed the good performance of the IGF to the digitalized system introduced by the commission.
“The increase can be attributed to an increase in performance and some of the interventions that we have put in place, we have put in place some digital processes which is speeding up the processes of documents at the commission, and that has actually contributed to the increase that we experienced last year,” he said.
He added that it is not exactly attributed to the lease of government lands.