Determinants of low land use planning regulation compliance rate in Ghana

•The relationship between ignorance of planning requirements and relevance, and land use regulation compliance is tested.•The two attributes are not strong predictors of compliance with land use regulation.•The non-compliance with land use regulations is mostly deliberate.•There is dearth of evidence about the benefits of planning to warrant the costs and inconveniences of compliance.•Compliance is highest among the elite class because of the relatively low compliance cost they tend to face.

The connection between efficient land use and economic development is widely known. Land use planning could thus be effectively leveraged in the fight against poverty in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). To do so, the prescriptions of land use regulations must not just be efficient and effective, but must also be widely adhered to by developers and land users. Adherence to land use regulatory requirements is very low in SSA, indeed across poor countries. This could stem from a multitude of factors. The often cited causes are a general ignorance of the existence of particular land use regulatory requirements or a general lack of appreciation of their benefits. There is however little empirical evidence to confirm the unique contributions of these two factors to the low compliance rate. This study tests the hypothesis that ignorance of planning requirements and lack of appreciation of their benefits overwhelmingly determine land use regulation compliance rate using empirical data from Kwabenya, a suburb of Accra, Ghana. The evidence refutes the hypothesis. On the contrary, the rampant breaches of land use regulations were found to be mostly deliberate. This is stirred by the dearth of evidence about the benefits of land use requirements to warrant the costs and inconveniences of compliance. Compliance was found to be highest among the elite class. This is because they tend to face relatively lower costs of compliance due to cronyism and the need to provide evidence of compliance for other transactions such as to secure bank loans. Designing land use regulations that offers actual benefits over costs is more likely to achieve higher compliance. The on-going multilateral funded planning reforms in Ghana should do no worse than framing the new policies on the basis of supportable evidence of benefits over costs; speculative benefits have proved fatal.