Re-echoing Building Permit Journals to Revamp Public Consciousness
Re-echoing Building Permit Journals to Revamp Public Consciousness
Re-echoing Building Permit Articles/Journals to Revamp Public Consciousness
Building permission serves as a green light in any land development; meanwhile, land development has been the principal evidence of an economical valor of many nations in recent times due to architectural innovations and contemporary trends. As such, any nation without standardized and well legal framework will be deficient of infrastructural splendor. There are successions of workshops, meetings and conferences in an attempt to solve the problems of planning permission which means couples of thousands of dollars and time have been invested but the authorities have nothing to boast of to induce Ghanaians. The following reports were taken from news papers articles to create public awareness on the issues of building permit in Ghana. I decided to hark back to the public about what they have read years chronologically to re-echo in an attempt to create more public attention.
It was in 2007 when Ghana New Agency reported that, at one of the recent parliament meetings, the Cabinet expressed grave concern at the growing laxity in the enforcement of planning and building regulations by MMDAs (GNA, 14 February 2007). In view of this, it has raised public concern; therefore experts are searching for measures to curtail the intriguing situation. From 2007 to date, is there any sober effort by parliament to avert the problems? Meanwhile, the recent news paper article stated that "Delays associated with the granting of a building permit are a common complaint by permit applicants. It is believed that the numerous illegal and indiscriminate erections of: various structures and building edifices can be attributed in part to the length of time a building application is considered for a permit" (The Ghanaian Times, June 30 2009).
There are clear indications that the problems still persist and nothing much has been done to solve the problem. However, the problem has been a focal issues discussed by concerned citizens of different professions. Their views on how to mitigate the problem are usually not unanimous base upon political and other socio-economic factors that surrounds it. The following are statements, suggestions and comments made by various concern citizens of different profession;
Architects/planners:
Professor George W.K Intsiful, Head of the Architecture Department of the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), He said the central body should have an oversight responsibility of all agencies and harmonize their activities to ensure that proper development planning schemes were followed in the country,( The Ghanaian Times, June 30 2009). The President of the Ghana Institute of Architects Mr. Osei Kwame Agyemang also mentioned that" Planning committees that consider and approve: building permits most often fail to meet local authorities,' but should be made to display every month permit applications received, approved or refused.
He said that the Ministry of Works and Housing and the Ministry of Local Government Rural Development and Environment should ensure that Town Development Committees issues out only development permits whilst building permits become the sole prerogative of town and municipal assemblies to forestall the duplication of delays observed. (Ghanaian Journals May 6, 2009)
In general, Ghanaian architects attributed the unwillingness of developers to acquire building permits to the cumbersome and laborious procedures one has to go through before acquiring permits from district assemblies (Ghanaian Chronicle, 28 January 2007). Problem of inadequate enforcement of the Ghana Building Regulations (LI 1630) and other development controls have adversely affected the urban and rural landscapes in the country. This has resulted in indiscriminate and amorphous infrastructural development facilitating to flooding and collapse of buildings. The June 19 floods at Kaneshie and some parts of the Accra which claimed seven lives brought to the fore, many challenges that the country (Ghanaian Chronicle, 28 January 2007).
A workshop to review processes and procedures for granting building and development permits by the Town and Country Planning Department has been held in Accra on July 28, 2008.
Thirty-eight (38) planners and works engineers of Municipal, Metropolitan and District Assemblies made recommendations for shortening the time period for granting permits.
Recommendations included reducing the number of signatories needed for permits, the review of the law that makes title clearance a requisite for building permits, development of a single system for granting permits in the country, and frequent holding of meetings to approve permits, were made. GNA
Furthermore, Gladys Mukuah, a planning officer at the TCPD, said: "The impatience of the public to wait for approval of their building permits application was the cause of the problem (Times Tuesday June 30, 2009)
Comment: Architects, planners and technical teams involved are professionally trained and therefore they examine the extent of the problem from a technical and professional point of view. Meanwhile, ordinary man may look at the logics and implication especially when it comes to the enforcement of building regulations which are sometimes very detrimental and unfavorable to the violators. The members of this group are trained to transfer the realities of the technical concepts to be adopted in a real terms than how an unprofessional man will perceived it. But in practically terms, for straightforward understanding by the public, technical men need to support their arguments with more facts and proofs from thorough research to fully draw a parallel conclusion to articulate the bases of the arguments. (Hamah N. K, 2010).
Ministers/Government officials:
Greater Accra Regional Minister, Nii Armah Ashitey has directed. The statutory planning committees of the district assemblies have become weak. Consequently, they are unable or unwilling to enforce the basic bye-laws that the assemblies themselves have passed". (The Ghanaian Times, june 30 2009).The statutory planning committees of the district assemblies have become weak. Consequently, they are unable or unwilling to enforce the basic bye-laws that the assemblies themselves have passed". The Ghanaian Times, june 30 2009
Dr. Alfred Vanderpuije, Accra Metropolitan Chief Executive (AMA), also made similar comment on same issue on tasking the Town and Country Planning Department, to issue building permits within three months, in order to reverse the long waiting period by applicants
On the same subject, Major (Rtd) Nicholas Mensah told IRIN, "They [city authorities] have simply failed to monitor and prevent these illegal structures from coming up, but recommendations have been made to assemblies and the Local Government Ministry to pull down such structures."
The Metropolitan Director of T&CP department, Mr. Asiedu Poku has described the situation as "chaotic but not insurmountable." According to him, his outfit has adopted an indirect system of educating the communities about re-planning.
At the Accra Metropolitan Assembly for instance, there are more than 50 bureaucratic procedures that a developer has to follow before permits are issued. The procedure exists at the Tema Metropolitan Assemblies and Ashaiman Municipal Assemblies where 50 conditions would have to be met, said Nii Armah Ashitey has directed (Times Tuesday June 30, 2009).
Comment: This groupalways politicizes the realities and facts of the scenario not taking into consideration the implications but just to gain public interest without considering deeply the effect and the aftermath of their actions. They polish their proclamations to retract what has gone wrong to gain more political power and fame. They always get facts from the professional sources to support their statement intrinsically.
Legal Practitioners /Journalists:
Other people welcomed the idea of demolishing by saying, "If we need to clear houses to make it possible for the passage of water [during rainfall], we need to do so," commented Mr. Gilbert Boamah, a legal practitioner (Published June 24, 2009)
But some social commentators and advocates disagree on this position. "Seven people died out of the flood, but do we know the number of people who will die because of a disease outbreak when buildings are demolished?" This question was posed by Kwesi Pratt Jr, the Managing Editor of The Insight newspaper."Demolishing buildings may create new problems," he remarked. Those who are likely to be affected by such demolitions demand that they are paid compensations, enough for them to re-settle (Published June 24, 2009).
Comment:The legal practitioners as part of their ethics always appraise the legalities of the situation. They sometimes ignore realities, implications and effects that the legitimacy fabricates and cling to the regulations, enactments and the constitutions to pass their appalling judgments detrimentally. Contrary, journalist sometimes are very anti or pro to some situation and offer a logical approaches to situation such as the above statement made by. Kwesi Prat Jr. He is logically right, but is it technically acceptable? Technicalities and logics sometimes don't complement each other and thus the correlations creates vantage forum.
Public:
By regulation, housing developers are required to obtain development permits from the Town and Country Planning department and building permit from the KMA. But due to the cumbersome nature of the procedure and cost (in terms of time and actual payment of fees) many developers avoid applying to obtain the required permits.
The dilemma of applicants to acquired or to abandoned the building regulations remain a nightmare with the following numerous question asked by many applicants/developers;
Why should it have taken so long to get my building permit?
Why does it take so long to get a building permit?
Why such complicated and tedious process?
Is it not clear to government that something is seriously wrong with our building permit policy?
Why can't the process be improved?
How long should the citizens endure this before the process is improved?
Haven't we had enough of this complicated process?
Comment: Public always put forth question and demand or seek for answers to alleviate their quandaries. They seek these answers impatiently and anxiously to divulge their grievances and the reactions can be disastrous. Undoubtedly, the voices of the public can change a political arena for better or for worst. They remain the most dominant since they constitute major population of the nation.
Seeking consensus
The root of the problem is the delay or the prolonged system of permit approval which is as a result of complicated legal frame, unskilled and incompetent personnel, lack of modern technologies and logistics to aid the work of respective agents and agencies involved, the cost involved scared many applicants to face the authority, No allocation of housing loan/finance, few approval centre, lack of enforcement.
In view of this, applicants/developer clings on the vulnerability of the situation and abandoned building regulations. The complicated legal framework (misconstrue clauses gives applicants/developers the ultimatums to commence construction without waiting for their permit). In this intricacies, some developers build on waterways, reserve areas, parks, and some time encroach into private or government land. In short their illegal construction consequently affects planning and zoning schemes. Eventually, it leads to serious flooding and collapse of building which hamper health and sanitation in major cities in Ghana. The situation also attracts demolishing of illegal structure and seizer of properties. It also affects housing delivery, and the current high housing deficit could be attributed to the delay therein. According to Mr Robert Abongo, Minister of Water Resources, Works and Housing said", on the average, the annual national housing requirement is 140,000 units with a supply of about 45,000 units per annum (Nov. 28, GNA). Eventually, the scenario tantamount to many socio-economic problems facing the nation.
compiled and analyzed by Hammah Noriss Kweku
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