Employing smart technologies for land management services and processes underline the concept of smart land management. In this context, smartness is defined by [26] (p. 5) as “the combination ofboth smart citizens, who are able to use information and communication technologies to advocate and pursue their interests, and on smart information- processing, i.e. facilities which can fuse data from all types ofsources and platforms.” Chigbu and others [27] corroborate this definition and noted that although some technologies could be employed passively, the issue of smartness goes far beyond the mere uptake of the technology, to include the alternative manners in which citizens express their voice and claim their rights. Consequently, applying smart technologies to land management, de Vries et al. [26] define smart land management as land interventions that rely on both passive and/or active information sensors (generated by technological means and also based on voluntary and structured information contributions by citizens) before, during, and after the decision-making process with regards to land. In [28] (p. 274), they also define it as “the kind ofprocesses that uses social technologies, volunteered geographic information, and crowdsourcing in combination with technical drivers of intelligent information systems and big, linked, and open data.” Smart land management strategies can facilitate the efforts toward sustainable development [29]. This is especially true in the sub-Saharan Africa region, where the largest source of employment to the population is dependent on land [30] and yet have high land institutional and management weaknesses.

Blockchain technology has received numerous citations in recent land studies in relation to smart land management [32]. Among other benefits to land management, blockchain is acknowledged for potential changes in land management by creating a more open, democratic, and trusted system [32–36]. The potentials of blockchain, coupled with the recent ongoing discourses and advocacy toward smart land management, form part of the underlying factors accounting for the reasons why several countries, and scholars, are piloting and writing about the technology respectively [23,32,37–44]. In these different studies, the benefits of blockchain as a smart technology for land management have centered on its ability to enhance transparency, trust, and land data security. It also enhances data quality, accuracy, and integrity through a consensus mechanism amongst stakeholders, and again, it allows for easy information accessibility, traceability of land records, elimination of fraud, corruption, unscrupulous manipulation of land records, and multiple sales of land [20,40–42,45–50].

In the sub-Sahara African region, there exist limited literature specifically dedicated to looking at the actual application situations of blockchain technology in support of land acquisition, despite attempts, deliberations, and/or considerations for its general application in land management and land administration in countries like Ghana, Kenya, Rwanda, Zambia, and South Africa [56]. This study therefore fills this gap in the literature using deduced lessons from a blockchain-based digital land registry concept in Ghana.

 

3. Results

Public Land Acquisition

In the public land acquisition, besides the actual purchasing value to be paid for the land and other official administrative charges, there are numerous unofficial charges at the different stages of the procedure, which worsen the plight of prospective land purchasers [16]. As the process is mainly manual and activities between clients and officials are hardly known to other officials, some unscrupulous land officials use their offices to perpetuate the bad ethic of taking unofficial monies from prospective purchasers before they go ahead to carry out their mandated official services, although clients have already paid all official charges. This is made possible due to the lack of transparency in the process and among institutional divisions, and among stakeholders [20,21].

A second challenge to land acquisition is the fragmented institutional arrangements, coupled with the overlap of functions due to the lack of consultations and real-time synchronization of actions amongst land institutional divisions, which lead to unnecessary bureaucracies and overlaps [18,77].

A third challenge is identified in the sequence of the land acquisition stages. There appears a disarray in the order of the land acquisition process. A prospective purchaser will have to contract a qualified surveyor to prepare a site plan and cadastral plan for them, and pay for it before they proceed to conduct an official search on the status of the land with the plan. This order is criticized on the basis where the search result is negative; the money spent on the plan becomes a loss to the purchaser.

A final challenge identified in the acquisition process is not so much embedded in the stages but associated with a weakness in implementing and enforcing policies that guide the acquisition process [18]. Not only in Ghana is this problem prevalent but very significant across the African continent [2]. This weakness has made way for intrusions of unqualified middlemen into the system [4]. These unqualified middlemen intercept the different stages of the acquisition process, which make it challenging for prospective purchasers.

Customary Land Acquisition

Under customary land acquisition, the first challenge for prospective purchasers is the payment of different monies, Kola money, and site visit fees, which happen at the first and second stages in the process above. These monies go into making the whole land acquisition process expensive and a daunting task for many people, especially the local people in most instances. Payment of the kola money precedes the telling of one’s mission, and so, if after the mission is disclosed, it is found that there is no vacant land available, the purchaser loses the money.

The subsequent challenges of the acquisition process are rather as a result of the manual system of customary land transactions and management. The first is due to the lack of transparency in the land acquisition process [4,15,22]. In many instances, the information received at the chief’s palace becomes the only authoritative information to be relied upon to conclude the acquisition, particularly where no formal sector institutions are contacted. Some dishonest chiefs capitalize on this situation to perpetuate the double sale of the same piece of land to different purchasers, which usually lead to land disputes and conflict.

Finally, another challenge is that just like under the public land acquisition, this acquisition process is bedeviled with many bureaucracies that lead to prolonging and sometimes frustrating the acquisition process unnecessarily. First, the prospective purchaser has to deal with the sub-chiefs, followed with the inspection team, and then with the overlord king of the bigger traditional area who will have to sign the allocation letter after it has been issued by the sub-chief [4]. These processes could take too long particularly while awaiting the endorsement and/or signature of the overlord [2]. The time for the acquisition to be completed, coupled with all the incidental monies to be paid aside the actual value of the land, tends to make the entire acquisition process very cumbersome and challenging for many people [19].

 

4. The Proposed Blockchain-Based Land Acquisition Framework

See in main document.

The proposed framework will disrupt and replace the already existing processes in certain ways as is in accordance with smart technologies [26]. The main disruptions will include the elimination of intermediaries in land information accessibility and elimination of unofficial charges. The incurring of cost that could become a loss to the prospective purchaser if a search result turns out negative will also be eliminated. Finally, the unnecessary bureaucracies due to the overlap and repetition of functions will eliminated to shorten and simplify the existing cumbersome land acquisition process.

 

5. Conclusion

The study supports the epistemology that the machinery with regard to land transactions that is clear, understandable, fair, and reasonable in its operation and implementation, and supported by a computerized system to provide quicker accessibility to updated land data, is a necessity for effective land management and land administration processes [70]. The study demonstrates that bridging the extreme ends of customary and public land acquisitions through a blockchain-enabled system is possible.

The main contribution of this study to knowledge in the topic area is that it has conceptualized a new smart blockchain-based land acquisition framework, Figure 4. This frame- work and its underlying concept are relevant for addressing land acquisition challenges not only in Ghana but in the many other developing countries especially in the sub-Saharan Africa that have similar dual land-tenure systems and land acquisition challenges. The framework will permit accessibility to land information devoid of intermediaries and eliminate unnecessary bureaucracies and unqualified middlemen to shorten and simplify land acquisition processes. It again eliminates unofficial charges from the process. This makes the framework useful in the context of other African regions like Rwanda, Kenya, Nigeria, and Uganda [12,84–86]. It is essential to mention that threats of system sabotage from some corrupt land
officials, and customary authorities who might not wish for transparency in their deals, exist. In addition, the private blockchain-based land companies could equally undermine the system for fear that it will eventually kick them out of the land market. Additionally, the eliminated middlemen will try to find alternative approaches to intercept the system. To forestall these threats, we recommend: Initial consensus with customary authorities to get them to understand, accept, and pledge their support for the framework. Provide legal basis for PPP to assure private blockchain experts of a continuous stay in the land market. Again, government should collaborate with customary authorities to absorb most of the graduates in the land discipline that have turned into middlemen due to lack of employment. Finally, legal sanctions should be strictly enforced against any illegal land activities identified and which threatens the system. Other policy implications including expansion of land records digitization in a participatory approach, and public education on the use and how the blockchain system works among others, as identified in [20], are relevant in this study’s context.

This study was limited by the scarce literature on both smart land management and blockchain’s application to land management, particularly relating to contexts of a pluralistic land tenure system such as that found in Ghana. This limitation is also partly due to the fact that this study is the first to specifically look at the possibility of blockchain’s application for both customary and public land acquisition in a simultaneous manner in the Ghanaian context. More research works in this topic area are therefore encouraged. Specifically, considering that the concept of blockchain application to land management is still elementary and continues to evolve, the study recommends that future research works should look into establishing a framework that can be used as a guide to assess the readiness of land management and land administration systems in sub-Sahara Africa for blockchain consideration especially in Ghana.