Jesse Ramdeo

Se­nior Re­porter

jesse.ramdeo@cnc3.co.tt

The Gov­ern­ment is set to over­haul Trinidad and To­ba­go’s con­struc­tion per­mit­ting sys­tem, with Cab­i­net ap­prov­ing the re­moval of a long-stand­ing pub­lic health ap­proval re­quire­ment in a bid to cut de­lays and stim­u­late de­vel­op­ment.

Speak­ing at the post-Cab­i­net me­dia brief­ing yes­ter­day, Land and Le­gal Af­fairs Min­is­ter Sad­dam Ho­sein an­nounced that over­sight by Coun­ty Med­ical Of­fi­cers of Health (CMOH) will be elim­i­nat­ed from the plan­ning ap­proval process.

“Cab­i­net to­day agreed to re­move the over­sight of the Coun­ty Med­ical Of­fi­cers of Health from the con­struc­tion plan­ning per­mit sys­tem. This will re­duce bu­reau­crat­ic de­lays caused by du­pli­ca­tion of rules en­forced by oth­er gov­ern­ment agen­cies and pro­mote the ease of do­ing busi­ness in Trinidad and To­ba­go,” Ho­sein said.

He ex­plained that the cur­rent sys­tem re­quires mul­ti­ple ap­provals from var­i­ous agen­cies be­fore a com­ple­tion cer­tifi­cate can be is­sued, cre­at­ing sig­nif­i­cant bot­tle­necks for both pri­vate cit­i­zens and de­vel­op­ers.

“Elim­i­nat­ing the CMOH ap­proval re­quire­ment will sig­nif­i­cant­ly re­duce the av­er­age pro­cess­ing time for com­ple­tion cer­tifi­cates,” he added, not­ing that pub­lic health con­cerns are al­ready ad­dressed by agen­cies such as WASA, the Drainage Di­vi­sion, re­gion­al cor­po­ra­tions, and pub­lic health in­spec­tors.

Ho­sein de­scribed the ex­ist­ing re­quire­ment as out­dat­ed, cit­ing the Pub­lic Health Or­di­nance as “a very ar­cha­ic piece of leg­is­la­tion which still gov­erns our city in 2025.”

He al­so high­light­ed wide­spread du­pli­ca­tion in the sys­tem, where mul­ti­ple agen­cies as­sess the same con­struc­tion el­e­ments—from build­ing struc­ture to drainage—re­sult­ing in long de­lays. “I am told that the av­er­age time to get a plan ap­proved by the CMOH is around eight months, and in some cas­es, it can take up to two years,” he said.

The Min­is­ter added that gov­ern­ment will al­so re­move the re­quire­ment for Min­is­ter of Health ap­proval for un­der­sized lots.

Leg­is­la­tion to im­ple­ment these changes is ex­pect­ed to be pre­sent­ed to Par­lia­ment soon. Ho­sein said the re­forms aim to “in­crease ef­fi­cien­cy, re­move bu­reau­cra­cy, and en­sure greater ease of do­ing busi­ness to boost our con­struc­tion sec­tor.”