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The 18th Surveyors Week and 54th Annual General Meeting of the Ghana Institution of Surveyors will come off in Accra from the 18th to the 26th of February, 2023.

Ahead of the program, the Chairman of the Planning Committee, Dr Benjamin Armah Quaye has been providing some insight into what will transpire. He noted that successive Governments have sought, through numerous initiatives to improve Ghana’s land administration regime.

Some major interventions in the past have been through the Land Administration Project (LAP) - phases 1 and 2, which sought to lay the foundation and consolidate urban and rural land administration and management systems for efficient and transparent land service delivery.

The focus of the interventions has been aimed at improving land administration with respect to transforming the institutional arrangement; reforming the Legal and regulatory framework, harmonizing the customary and formal sectors, introducing of ICT-enabled processes and re-engineering business processes.

Despite the above efforts, the challenges facing the land administration system are still pervasive. To what extent have surveyors been involved? How can surveyors contribute positively to the transformation agenda? What skills do surveyors require to positively contribute to the transformation agenda? According to him the 18th Surveyors Week and the 54th Annual General Meeting of the Ghana Institution of Surveyors will deliberate on the issues which are critical for national development.

The selected theme for the program is “Transforming Land Administration in Ghana - The Role of the Surveying Professional”. The transformation of the land administration system of the country cannot be properly focused if surveying professionals who have the requisite expertise are not involved in the process. Again, since development is a complex mix, the various categories of experts need to closely collaborate thereby ensuring that no gaps exist.

The practice of professional surveying comes under the ambit of the Ghana Institution of Surveyors. It is a professional body established on 28th February 1969, at the general meeting of the Ghana branch of the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors at which a resolution was passed to that effect, and the constitution was promulgated.

The Institution is the leading source of professional advice on landed property and construction in Ghana. Its vision is to be an internationally recognised professional organization committed to providing effective leadership and excellence in land resource management for sustainable development. The Ghana Institution of Surveyors prides itself on some core values which include creativity and innovation, professionalism, ethics, integrity, accountability, teamwork, as well as social and environmental concerns.

Aside from managing the welfare of its members, the Institution has other objectives such as the management and development of estates and other landed property, providing cost engineering services, providing precise positioning, charting and data gathering in the marine environment and other geoinformatics activities etc. It has a membership of close to three thousand categorised into three divisions.

These are; land surveying, quantity surveying, and valuation and estate surveying divisions. The land surveyor is a professional engaged in a basket of services, including cadastral and mapping services. The quantity surveyor tackles engineering estimations/costing, cost monitoring, engineering construction management, and related tasks.

The estate/valuation surveyor is broadly engaged in the land economy, estate management, property valuation (including plant and machinery valuation, among many other tasks), facilities management, conflict resolution, and land compensation appraisals.

This year's election of a Vice-President will be unique, because hitherto there was no serious competition as provided for in the constitution of GhIS. But for the first time since the reviewed constitution in 2017, the position of a Vice-President is being keenly contested by two Senior Members of the division whose turn is to provide for the Vice--President slot.