The team during the meeting
The Deutsche Gesellschaft fur Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) in collaboration with the Land Use and Spatial Planning Authority (LUSPA), and other stakeholders have organised a Land Use Planning and Management Information System (LUPMIS) redevelopment kick-off meeting.
The meeting aims to mark the start of the LUPMIS project to redevelop the existing system to meet modern technology in order to make issuance of permit easier and faster.
Speaking at the meeting, Deputy CEO of LUSPA, formerly Town and Country Planning Department, Chapman Owusu Sekyere, explained that it is the responsibility of LUSPA to prepare spatial plans to guide the orderly development of communities.
He added that the redevelopment of LUPMIS is crucial to meet the technological age of the modern world.
“Issuance of permit is normally based on our spatial plans but with modern trends things are changing now with the coming into being of the computer. We cannot continue to go to the drawing board with our T-squares to be drawing our community so we need at system that will allow us to use the computer to develop our communities, towns and districts,” he said.
He further added that LUPMIS is the IT component of the spatial planning that will be able to use computer to design settlement and also process the issuance of permits.
The Component Manager PAIReD program in charge of Data Management for Local Governance, Laetitia Erny, also explained that GIZ is supporting the government and LUSPA to redevelop the LUPMIS system since it is important to have special data for urban development in the country.
She said, “It’s important to have a special data for urban development and also for developing and managing the land space in Ghana.”
The team leader of GOPA consultant, the firm responsible for developing the new LUPMIS system for LUSPA, Ekkehardf Roth, noted that the existing system was developed in 2008 hence the need to operate it in the latest technology, since the new development will make work easier.
The LUPMIS REDEVELOPMENT is a GIZ funded project to digitally development spatial planning, land use and management information system for the country.