Kingston, Jamaica – CSDC is pleased to announce that the AMANDA Business Performance Platform has been activated by the Kingston and St. Andrew Corporation (Population: 644,119) and Manchester Parish Council (Population: 190,000). AMANDA is being used to track land development permits and licenses, as well as supporting planning and subdivision decisions regarding housing, manufacturing, and a variety of commercial activities.

This successful implementation represents the latest step in a strategy that will see AMANDA used for application intake in all 14 of Jamaica’s Parishes. The National Environment & Planning Agency (NEPA) has used AMANDA Permitting system since 2005 to streamline applications for development projects. In that time AMANDA has helped them process more than 8,000 applications. “AMANDA has helped us improve the efficiency of our application process,” said Marc Rammelaere, Director, Applications Management Division for NEPA. “We can now easily identify where delays occur and move quickly to make improvements.”

With the implementation of AMANDA Public Portal, which provides online access to the data stored in AMANDA, NEPA has been able to provide citizens with greater access to the application process. “The public can now follow the status of their applications online in real-time, anytime,” said Mr. Rammelaere. “This gives them the ability to take and active role in helping to manage the process and ensuring that timelines are met.”

In the first quarter of 2010, NEPA will use AMANDA Public Portal to enable the online submission of applications. This will make the submission of applications easier for citizens and further reduce application processing times.

As AMANDA is rolled out to more local Parishes it will facilitate cooperation between NEPA at the national level and the autonomous local governments. It will eliminate redundant data reentry, reduce application processing times and help maintain the consistency of applications, all with minimal impact on the local governments’ IT resources.

With the national roll-out of AMANDA, NEPA and the local Parishes are well on their way to meeting a national commitment to reduce the waiting time for land development project approvals to less than 90 days.