Lands Commission Interdicts 10 Officers For Their Alleged Involvement In Stealing Various Sums Of Money

The land Commission has interdicted 10 of their officers for their alleged involvement in stealing various sums of money from unsuspecting public for the payment of the registration of their properties.

Addressing a press conference yesterday in Accra, the Executive Secretary of the Lands Commission, James Ebenezer Kobina Dadson said the 10 officers of the Commission were interdicted as part of the internal disciplinary conditions to deal with staff of the Commission who flouts the work conditions of the Commission as investigations revealed the Commission had lost some stamp duty.

‘Stamp duty’ is a form of tax on land document that are presented the public for registration of properties.   

According to him, the fraud  was detected in may 2021 year when the  audit  unit of the Commission  realized some  tax figures  paid by  some property owners who had  paid  for the registration of their properties failed to reflect the tax amount expected.

He said “The internal audit unit of the Commission uncovered some anomalies regarding some payment of stamp duties. It was realized by the audit unit that the assessed figures didn’t necessarily reflect the payment effected by property owners or those processing the document for registration and so the commission itself commenced investigations into the matter by reporting to the CID of the Ghana Police Service. 

21 persons including 16 staff were interrogated by the NIB. They were picked up from the office and their 16 of them were picked while 5 are still at large”.

He said the case which was later reported to the National Investigations Bureau (NIB), was still under investigations while the Commission continues with it internal investigations. 

“The Commission has a policy that it takes as part of the disciplinary measures taken against staff and so once we have exhausted those processes then we place the staff on interdiction. This is a policy on the Commission’s staff discipline as part of our conditions of service.

He further indicated that though the his outfit may not put a figure around how much these suspects have stolen from the Commission, it has put in place measures to “for stall the unfortunate incident” from happening in future as they initiate steps to move unto a robust platform to be managed by another firm rather than an in house information platform. 

The Executive secretary however urged the public to be circumspect in their utterances on the matter since the case was in still in court and believes the court would provide the public with the expected conclusion.

He added that the Commission was in no way conferring conviction on them but were to step aside for investigations to continue as the Commission’s internal regulations required.