Building permits to be issued within three months

Accra, June 29, GNA - Mr Armah Ashitey, Greater Accra Regional Minister, on Monday directed that the approval of applications for building permits in any district in the Greater Accra Region should not exceed three months.

He accused District Assemblies for adopting needless bureaucratic procedures in the allocation of permit to developers.

“The Accra Metropolitan Assembly for example has 50 bureaucratic steps that a developer has to go through before permits are issued,” he noted.

Mr Ashitey said this in Accra at the inaugural ceremony of the reconstituted Greater Accra Regional Co-ordinating Council (GARCC).

The GARCC is a regional administrative body that monitors and co-ordinates the implementation of government policies and development programmes in the region.

“All aggrieved persons should immediately send their petitions directly to me,” he said, and assured them that he would handle these petitions without delay.

He said the unauthorised structures that kept springing up around the city of Accra were as a result of the inability of the districts assemblies to expedite actions on building permits by law abiding citizens.

“I am not happy about some of the procedures that have been adopted by the district assemblies,” he said.

At the Tema Metropolitan and the Ashaiman Municipal Assembly, he said, officialdom had put impediments in the way of developers to the extent that initial approvals by the Tema Development Corporation, were rejected as developers were required to process the same application anew at the Assemblies.

He called on all districts assemblies to energise the various sub-structures of the assemblies, urban, zonal and area councils to be functional and effective in carrying out their mandates to be able to take full advantage of their local resources for economic and social development.

GNA