“Logically, these officials are harming the Dominican State by paralyzing the main engine of the country's economy, which is construction.”.
By Gissel Taveras
El Inmobiliario
SANTO DOMINGO. - The former president of the Dominican College of Engineers, Architects and Surveyors (CODIA), Cristian Rojas, urged the Ministry of Environment and President Luis Abinader to replace, if necessary, the officials who are overwhelmed with the permits requested by builders.
He indicated that it is up to the president to make the necessary corrections to expedite the processes in that ministry.
“The economy shouldn’t be paralyzed, especially not the economy of hundreds of investors who work with financing, because this delay only reduces their profits, since the interest practically swallows up the project's benefits,” he said, responding to questions from El Inmobiliarioabout the complaint from construction guilds regarding the ministry's delay in issuing construction permits for projects.
Rojas stated that after the death of Orlando Jorge Mera and the appointment of Miguel Ceara Hatton, there has been a delay in the granting of environmental permits.
“We don’t know if the vice minister, engineer Indhira de Jesús, doesn’t have the staff with the necessary capacity to handle the projects, nor do they have the technical capacity to grant the environmental permits,” he said.
He reported that when a construction project is about to begin, whether it be housing, buildings or the State's own projects, it is necessary to cut down trees and move large amounts of earth.
In that sense, Rojas understands that permits should not take a long time to grant to contractors and builders.
“An environmental permit should not take more than 45 days to be issued. Projects with trusts are the ones being most affected, and provincial offices should be empowered to grant approval to large projects—that is, permits should be decentralized for greater efficiency,” he emphasized.
He recommended that the Vice Minister of the Environment, if she doesn't already have them, request technical personnel from the Minister, either in the agroforestry or soil mechanics engineering fields, to expedite the process, as this delay is detrimental to the economy and the country's development.
“Logically, these officials are harming the Dominican State by paralyzing the main engine of the country's economy, which is construction,” Rojas asserted.
In that respect, he believes that President Luis Abinader should take action, since it is not new that builders nationwide have been complaining about the slowness in the delivery of permits by the Ministry of Environment.
He stated that in recent months an automation and digitization process has been initiated to upload projects to a platform to expedite the process, but this has actually slowed down and delayed the process, because apparently there is not the capacity and technology to address these problems.
Therefore, he said, they must increase the number of qualified technical staff in order to make the service more efficient for housing developers and investors.
