RUDYARD ‘Ruddy’ Spencer, the new minister of health and environment, said his ministry would set up a one-stop agency to handle building permits and licence applications, in order to shorten the waiting process.

“The government will be setting up a one-stop shop agency where NEPA, National Environment and Planning Agency, and all the relevant board members are players in the decision-making process so that within three months of the application, boards will be in a position to give a clear and distinctive answer to the applicant,” Spencer said.

Speaking Friday at a meeting with environmental agencies at the former ministry of land and environment in Kingston, Spencer expected that “within a month the board might be in a position to advise the applicant that there are some short comings…but certainly within three months after having no answer from the board it is assumed that their application has been approved.”

Spencer said he would be meeting with the key players to iron out the details of the proposed agency, but he insisted that the one stop agency would play a serious role in the government’s economic strategy, in terms of attracting investors who will no longer have to wait for long periods for permits to be approved.

Meantime, a report from Rollin Alveranga, director of planning at the Standards Division in the environment ministry indicated that Minister Spencer would immediately face a backlog of 126 appeals, some dating back three or four years ago.

Alveranga explained that the appeal process was slowed as a result of the relevant agencies taking too long to respond to queries.

Added Spencer: “I am going to pay special attention to those appeals and see if we can wipe them off by the end of this year. It is quite a lot of work to be done, but it must be done in the interest of the country.”

Winsome Townsend, director of strategic planning, policies and projects at NEPA reported that after implementing several measures, including the revision of the application forms, NEPA had been able to reduce its backlog to 55 per cent.

Townsend also recommended that the input of the more than one dozen other agencies on which NEPA must depend for information in application process, become a core responsibility for these agencies.

Otherwise, NEPA would have to be equipped with all the necessary technical skills to handle all aspects of the application process.

“At present it is not and in a sense it is like they are doing us a favour,” she said, adding that other areas which need to be addressed include, fees structure, increased monitoring and public education.