Land documentation goes electronic

Page 24: Daily Graphic, November 23, 2009.
Story: Albert K. Salia
THE Government has started implementation of a project for electronic record keeping of land transactions throughout the country.
The project, which is being funded by the World Bank, involves the intelligent scanning of all the manual land records in the Ghana Government Deed Registry at the Lands Commission into an electronic database.
It is being implemented by Josanti InfoImaging Ltd, the company that worked on a similar software for the Ghana Immigration Service and some major financial institutions in the country.
The Project Director of the Lands Administration Project (LAP) of the Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources, Dr W. Odame Larbi, told the Daily Graphic that the project would be completed in 15 months, during which period all the manual land records in the country would have been electronically converted for easy access and verification by interested parties in the land and property markets.
The software of the project, Electronic Records and Document Management Solution (ERDMS), prevents unauthorised access with function rights and access controls that maintain constant vigilance over user actions.
The solution also enhances operational efficiency, allows one to apply organisational records policies and procedures consistently, manages scanned images, faxes, word-processing documents and objects stored in off-site repositories.
It also improves disaster recovery and business continuity as the solution eliminates large-scale photocopying for off-site back-ups and simplifies records transport with CD, DVD, and optical storage support and reduces misfiling and document loss.
Successful implementation of the project is expected to facilitate electronic record keeping, not only for the Land Administration Project, but also for the entire Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources.
The solution could also be a model for all ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs), especially in the wake of the fire disaster that hit the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration.
Dr Larbi explained that because the current land records keeping had been of manual storage and retrieval was difficult, leading to tear and wear.
According to him, land records were not necessarily archival but were living records, because of the continuous reference to the records.
Dr Larbi, who is also the acting Executive Secretary of the Lands Commission, said the electronic record keeping of land documents would also forestall the incidence of manipulation of land records which often led to multiple sale of lands, resulting in preventable disputes over land ownership.
He explained that when the project was completed, persons all over the world could access and verify the genuineness of land documents without necessarily going to the Lands Title Deed Registry to verify.
In that way, he said, there would be minimal contact with the hard copies, thereby prolonging the lifespan of the hard copies.
Dr Larbi expressed excitement with the take-off of the project, since there was no back-up strategy in case of any disaster such as fire or flood.
As to whether online users could not tamper with the documents, he answered in the negative, explaining that a lot of control measures had been put in place by Josanti InfoImaging Ltd, a locally owned Ghanaian company, to prevent that.
Dr Larbi said under the project, land documents registered in the regions would be automatically updated at the National Data Centre in Accra.
He commended Josanti InfoImaging Ltd for winning the international bidding process, saying that for a local company to beat international bidders, it showed that Ghanaian companies had come a long way.
The Chief Executive Officer of Josanti InfoImaging Ltd, Mr Joseph Amoh-Anti, who conducted the Daily Graphic round the centre where the project was underway, said although some of the documents were brittle and fragile, the company was very well equipped to handle the assignment to a successful completion.
“None of the bound materials in the Deed Registry will be torn apart during scanning and indexing process,” he said after scanning a bounded material, stressing that “our implementation strategy included preserving the original records in the state we meet them or better, while creating electronic copies that are as close to the original as possible in look and feel for online access and off-site storage”.
Mr Amoh-Anti said successful implementation of the project would allow the Ghanaian citizen, researchers, the judiciary and investors to have access to land records with fewer or no human interventions.
“As a country, we are all too familiar with generally poor manual records management practices, as a result of which there is a considerable delay when doing business with some offices in both private and public sectors,” he said.