Re-engineering the Building Permits Acquisition Processing to Control the Development of Unauthorized Structures in Ghanaian Communities

Abstract

The unauthorized structural developments in Ghanaian conurbations are on the ascendancy as developers disregard building regulations or felt frustrated by the existing bureaucratic delays in the acquisition of building permits. The existing process has not effectively dealt with the numerous permit issuing challenges in the building construction industry for sustainable national development. The paper sought to come up with an alternative processing approach to fast track the decision making process at the point of granting the permit through the use of information communication technology (ICT) and geographic information system (GIS). To achieve this objective, existing data were gathered and analyzed to get a clear understanding of how the work processes currently operate within permit agencies in Ghana. Also, some selected Metropolitan, Municipal, Districts, and Lands Commission offices were visited to obtained stakeholders' qualitative assessments of the existing process to assist in identifying process areas of key customer concern. Lastly, process flow charts were created to display the entire process in a logical sequence of events from beginning to end. Both "As-Is" and "To-Be" process charts were then produced in Ghanaian context. Advanced systems in developed countries like United States, Hong Kong, and Singapore were used as a baseline to redesign the existing building permit processing in Ghana. The strengths, weaknesses opportunities, and threats (SWOT) analyses of the reviewed system were done. The paper proposed a central database management system (one-stop shop) connecting all the agencies involved in the building permit processing where any application could be worked on by the appropriate agency.