Fourteen employees have been charged by the Lands Commission with participating in stamp duty fraud. When the Audit Unit of the Commission realized that some property owners’ tax payments for property registration did not match the anticipated tax amount, it was in May 2022 that the stamp duty fraud was discovered.
A tax loss of GH¢100 million is allegedly involved in the fraud. The National Investigations Bureau is guiding the impacted employees through the legal proceedings.
This was disclosed on Friday in Accra during the Executive Secretary’s Annual Briefing and the Staff Awards Scheme launch, according to Mr. Benjamin Arthur, the Acting Executive Secretary of the Commission.
The Commission claimed, however, that additional research revealed the amount had been inflated.
According to Mr. Arthur, the Commission has also taken internal disciplinary action against the suspects and is putting them through final disciplinary procedures to decide their future with the Commission.
Concurrently, certain employees of the Commission were undergoing disciplinary actions for manipulating documents by deleting and adding them in order to create fictitious search reports.
“It is imperative to clarify that although management will persist in offering necessary job security to employees, instances of insubordination and deception will not be tolerated,” he declared.
“In order to weed out the bad nuts among us, management will provide the state investigation bodies with the necessary assistance.” A five-year business strategic plan for the Commission, spanning from 2023 to 2027, was also unveiled at the event, providing operational guidance.
Enhancing the Commission’s financial sustainability, digital reforms, corporate image, and staff competence and discipline to improve service delivery are among the five main objectives of the strategic plan.
Mr. Arthur declared that the Commission would start an outreach initiative this year called the “You Deserve to Know” campaign to inform the public about various facets of its work and operations.
He clarified that the campaign’s main objectives would be to raise public awareness of the Commission’s mandate, service delivery, the procedures involved in providing those services, the fees associated with providing those services, and digital reform platforms, among many other topics.
He claimed that doing so would improve the public’s trust in the Commission and its corporate image.
According to Mr. Arthur, “In Ghana, employees of the Lands Commission are thought to accept the ‘biggest bribes,’ and other media reports on the Commission’s performance frequently focused on our shortcomings while little was reported on the efforts and good works of the Commission.”
The few wrongdoings overshadow the incredibly hard work of the majority of employees. The majority of people don’t know much about how we operate or what the Commission does on land.
The goal of the outreach campaign is to dispel these myths and improve the company’s reputation moving forward.
The Acting Executive Secretary, however, didn’t waste any time in clarifying that its corporate image redemption drive could only be successful if it was linked to advancements in public service delivery.
In order to complement one another and accomplish the intended results, Mr. Arthur thus urged cooperation between the management and employees.
Deputy Minister of Lands and Natural Resources, Mr. Benito Owusu-Bio, outlined the Ministry’s goals for the year, which include improving the Commission’s corporate image, completing the construction of the new Lands Commission headquarters, which is scheduled to be put into service in April, and digitizing land administration operations.
He said he was confident in the direction the commission was taking and that it was led by capable people. “Eventually, the vast majority of Ghanaians will attest to the legitimacy and effectiveness of the Commission,” he declared.
