Improvement of construction permit process approval at local government in Malaysia

Abstract

Construction industry plays a leading role in the economies worldwide and Malaysia particularly. Fast delivery of construction permit by the local government, will encourage construction industry to grow faster. Currently, frustration and disappointment are constantly faced by industry players in getting construction permit, due to the late delivery. The objectives of this research are to appraise the efficiency of current process flow for the construction permit, to determine critical factor causing construction permit delay and to propose improvement of the current process in dealing with construction permit. This study employs an exploratory research approach supported by data collection and interaction with the experts in the focus group of construction permit. Their aim is to study the current service delivery system such as legislation, procedures, processes, best benchmark practices to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the public sector delivery system. World Bank methodology has been used to measure the performance of dealing with construction permit at each locality. The measured parameters are the number of procedures and time taken for each activity in the process. Sample data has been collected from sixteen completed Petronas petrol stations in each capital cities which fall under small scale commercial projects to undergo the survey. Based on the collected data, it indicates that current number of procedures and time required to obtain construction permits has adverse effects over the construction industry performance. The finding revealed that although for small scale project, the number of the procedure and the time taken is different between one local authority and another, although under same common laws. Distance to frontier method has been used as a measurement, that demonstrate the best performance observed on each indicator across all localities. Finding shows that Kuala Lumpur is more efficient with the implementation of risk-based component, eliminating unnecessary procedures, good coordination throughout permitting cycle and involvement of competent officer with multi-tasking knowledge in each agency. The outcome of this study is to develop new framework with a set of primary data on procedures and time in construction permit. The reduction of time and procedures in obtaining construction permit would contribute the construction industry players towards a better business environment, efficient and increase Malaysia economy growth.