McKenzie to convene high-level meeting to expand AMANDA system after Melissa

WESTERN BUREAU:

Minister of Local Government and Community Development Desmond McKenzie will convene a high-level executive meeting this week with municipal chief executive officers, directors of planning and his ministry’s information technology team as the government moves to accelerate the expanded and mandatory use of the AMANDA digital planning system across local authorities.

McKenzie made the disclosure during a meeting with administrative staff at the St Elizabeth Municipal Corporation on Friday, linking the urgency of the move to the widespread destruction of paper-based records during Hurricane Melissa, particularly in flood-prone areas such as Black River.

“That meeting will look at how we are going to proceed in expanding the AMANDA system that we already have,” McKenzie said.

He warned that continued resistance to digitisation is undermining service delivery and leaving municipal records dangerously exposed during disasters.

“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 minister said. “And I am saying this to you because of 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.”

The AMANDA system – Application Management and Data Automation – is a Web-based platform used by local authorities to manage development and building permit applications. It allows applications to be tracked, reviewed, approved and securely stored online, enabling agencies and applicants to access records remotely while improving transparency, efficiency and accountability.

Pointing to the impact of floodwaters during Hurricane Melissa, McKenzie said the era of scrambling to protect physical files must come to an end.

“So, time 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, it will be safely secured so that when the event is over, you can resume operations.”

Reducing delays

McKenzie linked the full implementation of AMANDA to the government’s broader plan to establish a one-stop development approval system aimed at reducing delays and improving accountability.

“When somebody’s plan comes in, instead of them waiting 90 days, within a month or even three weeks, the approval can be granted,” he said.

He stressed that the one-stop system does not remove authority from municipal corporations, but instead coordinates agencies to speed up decisions while maintaining required standards.

The minister said Hurricane Melissa has accelerated reforms that have been under discussion for years.

“We are going to be using Melissa to ensure that a lot of what we wanted to do gets done. This one-stop shop never started today. It started when I was mayor of Kingston in 2007, and it will go a far way in improving service delivery to the people,” McKenzie said.

With climate-related disasters expected to become more frequent, McKenzie warned that modernising planning systems is no longer optional.

“If we continue the way we are going, we will never be in a position to deliver efficiency and quality to the people who are depending on us,” he said.

albert.ferguson@gleanerjm.com