Get cracking on building approvals

Daryl Vaz, Guest Columnist

In just under two weeks, Finance Minister Dr Peter Phillips will tell the nation how he intends to finance the 2014-15 expenditure Budget tabled in Parliament last week. Already, it is clear that this will be another tight fiscal year.

I offer the Government some unsolicited advice. Just under one year ago I noted in my 2013 Sectoral contribution that there is broad consensus that bureaucracy is a major impediment to doing business, attracting investment, creating jobs and achieving growth.

At that time, I made a presentation in Parliament urging the Government to turn RED TAPE INTO RED CARPET!

"If we are to become the place of choice to live, work, raise our families and do business, bureaucratic transformation and gradual elimination must be aggressively pursued," I said then and say now.

One year later, the Government has not acted sufficiently, and we still face a situation where the public sector is strangled by inefficiency and archaic legislation and regulations which have no place in a globalised economic environment.

Some of the red tape is generic to all government entities. These can be identified and broadly eliminated or streamlined.

Others are peculiar to particular entities and will have to be dealt with entity by entity. It may not be possible to tackle all at one time. What is both necessary and doable is to determine the mission, galvanise the resolve and the political will, identify those entities that are most critical to investment and national development and get going. Others can be brought on board as the mission proceeds.

When the Public Sector Transformation Unit (PSTU) was established, its mandate was twofold:

• (1) To develop a master plan for the rationalisation and restructuring of government ministries and agencies to eliminate waste and reduce cost;
• (2) To review the administrative procedures and transactional processes of Government to make its operations and the public's experience in doing business with Government simple and friendly.

The first part of the mandate was completed and presented to Parliament three years ago. To date, no discernible action has been taken on its many important recommendations.

The second part of the PSTU's mandate - reviewing administrative and transactional processes - is yet to be embarked upon. One low-hanging fruit that could significantly reduce waste and cost and make the public's experience in doing business with Government simple and friendly is the Development Applications Approval Process (DAAP).

The rationalisation and restructuring of the DAAP could lead to increased employment and growth of the economy in the short to long term, given the positive correlation between building starts and gross domestic product.

Disincentive to investment

At present, the process is beset by too much red tape, is too complex, unwieldy and a major disincentive to investment, business and job creation. Several of the major stakeholders in the system, including land-use planners, architects, land surveyors, and developers, have criticised it as being inefficient and costly in terms of the time and process applications have to undergo before a decision is taken.

I have also pointed to the lack of an up-to-date national spatial plan and development orders or plans.

At present, the national spatial plan and the development orders for Jamaica are dated, with the last national spatial plan being for the period 1978-1998 and development orders being as old as that for Kingston which was confirmed in 1966.

These plans and orders are important, as they ensure a level of transparency, accountability and predictability in the system and allows for coordinated investment decisions by both the private and public sector.

The application processing system remains circuitous, lengthy, costly, and frustrating for all those involved.

In addition, the various pieces of legislation do not provide authority, and in some cases, mandates for the circulation and comments from various agencies or departments of Government.

Then there are also the overlapping arrangements of obtaining planning and building permission, along with the necessary environmental permits from the local planning and building authorities and the National Environment and Planning Agency. This process adds months of delay to the process, especially when several of the local authorities are involved.

Get our economy moving

The post-approval inspection and appeals processes also need to be undertaken in a timely manner.

It is with this in mind that I made a radical but necessary proposal to the prime minister and her Cabinet for an interim system of development approval which will no doubt get our economy moving.

This approach, which I proposed to be named the Jamaica Emergency Development Applications Approval Process, has several tenets which can take us from red tape to red carpet NOW.

This tenet involves the setting up of another Cabinet subcommittee similar to that of the existing Cabinet Infrastructure Committee that will pull together the relevant ministers and agencies who have the development mandate as part of their portfolios.

We must remember investors have options, and when we snooze, we lose as a country.

I am also proposing that the Government set up an online development application submission process, and also consider licensing registered architects to grant approval for certain types of developments, subject to clearly stipulated guidelines.

These initiatives could quickly spark the growth trend which Jamaica so desperately needs if we are to put the country on the right track.

Daryl Vaz is MP for Western Portland. Email feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com.