A TEAM of United States-based consultants has recommended a merger of stamp duty and title fee collection into a single payment system as part of the effort to speed up the transfer of land to investors in Jamaica.The consultants have also called for the elimination of the role of the Stamp Duty Office in valuing properties, suggesting there should be a separation of personnel to avoid the temptation to "seek rent."
Those are among the recommendations contained in a study, entitled the "Jamaica Business Roadmap", which was carried out in July, this year, as part of the efforts to reduce business constraints.
The study was funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and conducted by consultants George Atalla and Mark Shirman from the Virginia-based firm Booz Allen and Hamilton.
In detailing the findings of the report at a meeting with private and public sector officials at the Jamaica Conference Centre, in downtown Kingston last Wednesday, Mr. Shirman said that although the investor respondents in the study did not report the transfer of land to be as troublesome as acquiring or developing properties, there were still problems.
He said that overall, transferring land in Jamaica could take up to eight weeks, much longer than in other countries. The consultants have carried out similar studies and had their recommendations implemented in Africa, Europe and Latin America.
And, according to Mr. Shirman, "as far as we know, the country that we've seen that is probably best (in terms of transfer of land) is South Africa; they can do it in three days. In other countries, the typical process is one to two weeks."
Mr. Shirman said they were also concerned about the role of the Stamp Office in challenging the valuation of properties because it extended the length of the process and created opportunities to "seek rent."
"When the same people who are supposed to collect the stamp duty and push the process forward are the same people who do the valuation of the property, there's an opportunity; there's an awful lot of money to take care of and everyone of these transactions has a very tempting scenario for a lot of people," he said.
As a result, the consultants recommended a separation of the people who collect the stamp duties from those who value properties.
Referring to the eight-week period for transfer of land in Jamaica, Mr. Shirman said "the separation of a stamp duty office from a title office is very unusual around the world. In most cases now, it is a single window, it is a single stop.
"It may be multiple duties, it may be multiple fees, but it's collected in a single place and it's done at one time. And that can probably cut several weeks out of that process if something like that was to be instituted."
As part of the effort to avoid delays, the consultants also recommended that the agencies should "ensure that applications for title transfer are complete before accepting them."
The consultants said investors complained bitterly about land development, a process known by many to take more than two years.
Although there have been efforts to reform the process with a target set for clearance within 90 days, in most cases that has not been met. "Only the most active developers know how to complete the process in a timely manner," said Mr. Shirman.
The process of land development in Jamaica is a unique tiered process which requires multiple "hand-offs" of documents, said the consultants, noting that investors were required to contact the Natural Resources Conservation Authority (NRCA) directly, although many were not aware of that situation. Communication between the various agencies required to approve development plans was also said to be poor.
They recommended the elimination of the tiered approach to distributing applications, the enforcement of a requirement to have the agencies give a written response within a specified time, the opening of communications between the various agencies and investors, and maintaining a list of already-approved building designs for faster approval.
