Easier investments with single-window system ready by year end

The promised single-window permit system that would make construction efforts much more efficient will be ready before year-end, President Irfaan Ali said Friday.

The President, speaking at a business development forum at the Pegasus Corporate in Kingston, Georgetown, said that the new application involves a simple approval process.

“You deposit your application to one window and electronically, it is sent to all the agencies that need to comment within a timeframe.

“If they don’t provide their comments, it is deemed approved,” he said.

If there are comments, however, the applicant would be given a timeframe to respond to those.

“Once they respond to those comments and it clears all the hurdles, they can’t come back with additional comments,” the President added.

For many years, persons looking to start up a business have to move from agency to agency to fulfil various requirements. However, this initiative will improve the ease of doing business.

Using an electronic-based documentation system, this will reduce time for steps that must be followed for transactions, filling the standardised application forms, and meeting the checklist and processing time.

And with this initiative, the stakeholders from the various agencies involved in the approval process will be able to keep updated with the progress of the application rather than having the applicant go from agency to agency.

The Head of State believes that this new initiative is a beneficial one and expressed his hope that it will receive widespread political support.