SANTO DOMINGO- The Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources launched a platform this Wednesday that will allow interested parties to manage environmental permits for new projects submitted to the Directorate of Environmental Assessment and Impact, of the Vice Ministry of Environmental Management.
The head of that state agency, Miguel Ceara Hatton, announced the details of the “Virtual Environmental Authorization System”, a digital tool that will streamline and make more transparent the applications for environmental authorizations for works, projects and economic activities.
The official explained that the new system opens a door that will allow them to know the status of the documents, "to know who gets their hands on it, how long it will stay in a place; and the time that the consultant and the project promoter process it.
“I feel happy and excited because we are making a structural change in this ministry and a way to gain space and legitimacy in this society,” said Ceara Hatton.
The platform was developed by the Directorate of Information and Communication Technology of the Environment and today the first phase of the project was launched.
“What we are inaugurating here today is a step forward and a transformation of what this ministry has been doing,” the public servant emphasized.
“One of our biggest weaknesses, and I think we still have it, is the issue of permitting. This includes permits processed through environmental management, as well as those processed through the well-known mining channels,” he added.
“Since I arrived here, everyone told me this was a problem, that it lent itself to shoddy work, that decisions were slow, that there was no progress, that it was very difficult, and sometimes we encountered internal resistance. But little by little we made progress, and today we are able to present results, which will certainly improve,” he said.
He noted, for example, that processing permits and conducting studies for a given project takes time, because it goes far beyond simply stamping a document. In that regard, he pointed out that an environmental impact study can run to thousands of pages. He indicated that people sometimes “don't understand the complexity of the process. An environmental permit is crucial in this country because we are making decisions in a way that ensures they don't have negative environmental consequences.”.
The launch event, held in the multipurpose hall of the Environment Ministry, was attended by the Minister of the Presidency, Joel Santos Echavarría; the Minister of Housing and Buildings, Carlos Bonilla; and the Minister of Public Administration, Darío Castillo Lugo.
Also present were Peter Prazmowski, executive director of the National Competitiveness Council and coordinator of the Zero Bureaucracy Program, and Bartolomé Pujals, head of the Government Office of Information and Communication Technologies (OGTIC).
The event was also attended by representatives from various ministries, as well as the Dominican Republic Hotel and Tourism Association (Asonahores), the National Business Support Network for Environmental Protection (Ecored), and the Mining and Petroleum Chamber.
Bartolomé Pujols highlighted the platform launched by the Environment Ministry, which is part of Zero Bureaucracy, a government initiative that “is fulfilling the role of being a wall against corruption and a wall against inefficiency, but at the same time it is a bridge towards transparency and good administration.”.
