THE IMPACT OF LAND ACQUISITION ON CONSTRUCTION PROJECT DELIVERY IN THE SUNYANI MUNICIPALITY

ABSTRACT 

This study assesses the impact of land acquisition on construction project delivery in the Sunyani Municipality. The challenges in acquiring land than generally exists in the urban centres especially within regional capitals such as Sunyani Municipal, Accra, Tema, Kumasi etc. among others which stand out as areas where it is difficult and expensive to obtain land for construction purpose. Purposive sampling technique with emphasis on convenience sampling was adopted to select 30 participants which comprised contractors, landlords, chiefs/traditional leaders, town and country planning officers/district planning officers in the Sunyani Municipality, were interviewed. A structured interview was used and it emerged that most people obtain land from private persons and customary landowners, and Chiefs. That due to pressure on the available land for development, there is reduction in the size of land for construction projects. Again, the result indicated that they buy land directly from family head, reliable agents, and traditional rulers and later do documentation. On the role of land owners/stakeholders in land acquisition, the result revealed that land owners and family heads played significant role and it becomes easy to acquire land through them since they allocate land to people through lands commission and the Municipal/District planning officers who work in consultation with lands commission to demarcate land for sale. Multiple sale and high cost of land and relationship between the chiefs and lands commission is a major challenge in the municipality which affect land documentation and processing at the lands commission. Also people should do due diligence before buying land for any construction projects.  The scope of the study should be broadened to capture more data, that is by broadening the number of respondents in the study area and extend the same to every part of the country which will give room for generalization in the study.