Page 114 - Afrika Must Unite

RECONSTRUCTION AND DEVELOPMENT 99
loans, our people were at a disadvantage, since even the owner­
ship of buildings could be brought into dispute where the right
to the land on which they were erected might well be disputed.
Lands in Ghana in theory belong to the ‘Stools’, headed by
the chiefs. But when Europeans arrived in our midst, bringing
enticements of money and goods, m any chiefs signed away con­
cessions ; and some, in complete disregard of custom, made out­
right sales. W hat is worse, parcels of land were sold by families
in possession of them, to different purchasers, and this started a
whole series of law suits which, until my government came into
office, was the chief source of income to our lawyers, many of
whom made fortunes out of persuading parties to land quarrels
to resort to the extended machinery of native law over tracts
of land frequently not worth £100. The whole question of land
tenure in Ghana is one which requires examination and careful
overhaul. It becomes increasingly clear that the system is too
cumbersome and complex to adjust to the needs and pace of our
development.
M y government has made efforts to put some order into the
administration of Stool lands, which has now been brought under
the control of local authorities. This measure was adopted as a
means of stopping the misappropriation of funds from land
administration, which was beginning to assume alarming pro­
portions. We have also made laws which enable the government
to acquire lands suitable for development purposes.
Certain changes in our land tenure system seem to me inevit­
able if we are to pursue our development plans, but these will
have to be very carefully worked out. They must avoid the
creation of rifts in the body politic, and will accordingly have to
take into account customs and fundam ental traditions. One of
the blessings of our land tenure system is that it has not turned
ours into a nation where land hunger would have forced us to
break up vast holdings for redistribution among a destitute
peasantry. O ur customs, moreover, had erected a kind of social
security adapted to our subsistence economy. Some of our
farmers, it is true, have fallen victims to the rapacity of money­
lenders. M y government is trying to meet this problem of
peasant indebtedness by way of credit and other facilities. We
are also stimulating the growth of the co-operative movement