AHANTA TRADITIONAL COUNCIL GETS CUSTOMARY LAND SECRETARIAT

The Oil and Gas boom in the western region is said to have tripled the quest for land acquisition especially in the southern belt of the region and this has resulted in pockets of land disputes in almost every Land in the Ahanta Traditional Area.

The establishment of the Customary Land Secretariat is one of the key interventions under the Land Administration Project (LAP) designed by Government as one of the key policy actions and initiatives to ensure reforms in the land sector through a more efficient and decentralized land administration system. 

It is also said to be a policy measure aimed at addressing the challenges associated with land management and administration in this country.

As part of this land administration project, government is to assists and supported traditional owning communities to set up their own customary land secretariat so that they will be able to keep and maintain accurate records for the office of the Administrator of Stool lands to help minimize land related conflicts and disputes that are normally associated with land management and administration.

The Regional Stool Lands Officer from the Office of the Administrator of Stool lands, Ruth Paintsil, believes the decentralized Customary Lands Secretariat in Busua in the Ahanta West District of the western region will promote peaceful development of our communities and help make available information on the land use and rights as well as ownership.

“You and I know that if we have accurate and proper records we will not condone with the purchase of multiple sale of lands”.

She as well mentioned that the Customary Lands Secretariat will also help promote the Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) which intends to ease the pressure on the judiciary.   

Ruth Paintsil however advised that all documents on land transactions are to be sent to the Customary Lands Secretariat for records keeping to avoid double sale of lands in the Ahanata Traditional Area.

According to the western regional surveyor, Robert Hackman Antwi, the establishment of this office in Busua certainly makes the end of the frustration surveyors in the region go through just to do a piece of works on a land in the area.

Excited about the establishment of the Secretariat in Busua, chiefs cloud not hide their joy over the fact that the Secretariat affords them an alternative dispute resolution outside the court in the face of pockets of land litigations in almost every traditional area in the Ahanta land.

End…

ELEPHANTIASIS IS SPREADING SO FAST AT AMPATAANO

Lymphatic Filariasis popularly known as Elephantiasis is silently destroying lives and causing permanent disability to several homes in Ampataano, one of the fishing communities in the Ahanta West District of the Western Region.
Lymphatic Filariasis commonly known as Elephantiasis is characterized by the thickening of the skin and underling tissues especially in the leg and the male genitals and it is caused and transmitted by Wucheraria Bancrofti. They are small worms that passed from person to parson through the bite of an infective female anopheles mosquito.
In some cases the disease can cause certain body parts such as the scrotum to swell to the size of a basketball which is mostly found among men. This genital enlargement or Elephantiasis of the scrotum cloud only be treated through surgery.
Recently at Ampataano a fishing community in the Ahanta West District of the Western Region, 62 people were diagnosed of living with Elephantiasis among 200 people which turned up for screening when National Service Personnel from the Noguchi Memorial Institute for Medical Research Centre organized a week sensitization programme for the community.
According to the victims, their major challenge is how to access the District Health Center at Agona Nkwanta for their drugs and other treatments. They added that the Community Health Assistants which used to bring them the drugs have also stopped coming to their community for more than a year now. Leaving them at the mercy of NGO’s and philanthropist.
Nana Kessiwaa has been living with the Elephantiasis disease for almost 40 years now. Recounting his ordeal to me, she noted that she chew paracetamol almost every thirty minute just to reduce her pain since the drugs are not forthcoming.
Chief Research Assistant at the Noguchi Memorial Institute for Medical Research Centre, Joseph Okyere has been working on Elephantiasis cases in the western region for ten years said those in the communities along the coast in the western region are at a high risk of contracting the disease.
He advised the residents of Ampataano to sleep in the treated bed net and never forget to keep their surroundings clean.
The National Service Personnel from the Noguchi Memorial Institute for Medical Research Centre however presented bed nets as well as educational materials to the community flocks of Ampataano and gave Ivermectin and Albendazole to the victims of Elephantiasis in the community.
In endemic communities, 10 percent of women can be affected with swollen limbs whiles 50 percent of men can suffer from mutilating genital disease.