McKenzie urges wider use of AMANDA planning system following Hurricane Melissa

Minister of Local Government and Community Development Desmond McKenzie says greater effort is to be made to push the use of the AMANDA digital planning system amid vulnerabilities exposed by Hurricane Melissa.

McKenzie wants to see the system fully utilised, arguing that embracing digitisation is important to planning and development.

The AMANDA (Application Management and Data Automation) system is a web-based application management system that allows applicants for building and development permits to track the status and progress of their applications as they are reviewed by the relevant agencies.

The system is part of a programme to improve the development applications process in order to reduce delays, promote transparency, and, ultimately, generate large investments.

Speaking during a meeting with administrative staff at the St Elizabeth Municipal Corporation on Friday, McKenzie said the hurricane highlighted the dangers of relying on paper-based records, particularly in flood-prone Black River.

“For those of you in building, the planning department and roads and works, almost 80 per cent of the records you have are useless,” the portfolio minister said.

However, he revealed that there is a level of resistance to digitisation across some municipal corporations that is undermining service delivery.

“The question of digitisation and the AMANDA system that we have as a tool to improve performance and delivery — some municipal corporations don’t want to use it.”

Pointing to records damaged by floodwaters, the minister said the era of scrambling to protect physical files must end.

“Time has come where the AMANDA system will have to be used in a way so that if there is an occurrence, you don’t have to be scrambling to find plastic to cover up files.”

McKenzie says a high-level meeting will be held next week to expand and standardise the system.

He added that Hurricane Melissa has accelerated long-discussed reforms.

“We are going to be using Melissa to ensure that a lot of what we wanted to do gets done.”

- Albert Ferguson

Follow The Gleaner on X, formerly Twitter, and Instagram @JamaicaGleaner and on Facebook @GleanerJamaica. Send us a message on WhatsApp at 1-876-499-0169 or email us at onlinefeedback@gleanerjm.com or editors@gleanerjm.com.