CF Warning
The Star 23/08/2003 BY JANE RITIKOS

One month for local councils to finish checks, says Ka Ting

PETALING JAYA: All local authorities have been given just one month to complete their dealings with housing developers and not to impose their own conditions and procedures that can impede efforts to speed up the issuance of certificate of fitness for occupation (CFs).

Housing and Local Government Minister Datuk Seri Ong Ka Ting said the various departments of local authorities must complete their checks and administrative work over CFs within one month from the time they handle a completed project.

He revealed that the latest orders were needed because there were still suspicion and doubts expressed by developers against local authorities which were fond of imposing their own conditions.

“No local authority should impose conditions or try to have different procedures to show that it has powers in the issuance of CFs. We are serious about this and we will monitor them,” he said.

He was speaking to reporters after witnessing the signing ceremony of the memorandums of understanding between the Asian Centre for Media Studies (ACMS) and the Multimedia University of Malaysia and between the ACMS and Universiti Tunku Abdul Rahman at Menara Star here yesterday.

Ong recently announced that the Government’s steps to simplify CF issuance include approval of CFs by local authorities within 14 days of the submission of Form E.

He said that while the procedures had been simplified, there were still “hidden bureaucracies” in the local authorities. These include internal departments needing

to inspect, for example, parking spaces, open space and landscaping of the projects to see if they were according to the layout plans.

Ong said the local authorities should complete their internal processes even before Form E was submitted.

He also said they must understand and be ready to implement the new procedures, including the setting up of one-stop centres to handle CFs, by Nov 1.

Citing an example of delay by the local authorities, Ong said one of the major problems causing a bottleneck in the processes was technicians who often say they were not free to conduct inspections, causing a wait of as long as two months.

“Now that we give them one month, they know they will have to get the job done with more urgency,” he said.

He said the president of the local authorities would oversee the one-stop centre and chair meetings where on-the-spot approval would be given for the CFs.

Ong said the cutting down of red tape in CF issuance was an effort by the Government to improve the delivery system and increase the country’s competitiveness, particularly as investors favoured transparency and efficiency,

“As we move towards 2020, we do not want to be like in the 1980s and even the 1990s when we are bogged down by bureaucratic red tape, and unnecessary and redundant conditions imposed in the day-to-day running of operations.”