Customary landholding institutions and housing development in urban centres of Ghana: Case studies of Kumasi and Wa

In Ghana, land is vested in families and chiefs in the traditional land sector. These corporate bodies, referred to as customary landholding institutions control over 90% of the total land area in the country. The institutions therefore govern access to land. Urban centres in Ghana are plagued with a plethora of problems and one of them is inadequate housing. The urban housing problem is partly attributed to the existence and operation of the institutions. The customary landholding system is perceived as communal landownership, which does not permit individual ownership. It is thus argued that the system does not provide incentives for investing in housing development. This paper reports on a study carried out to test the assertion that the system does not permit individual ownership using two urban centres as case studies. The analysis shows that the operation of the institutions permits individual landownership. The traditional landownership system cannot therefore be the cause of the urban housing problem based on the premise that it does not permit individual ownership of land rights. (C) 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.