By RASHAD ROLLE

Tribune Staff Reporter

rrolle@tribunemedia.net

THE Minnis administration wants to reduce the number of murders to 85 by 2021 while reducing the average time it takes to get a business licence from 30 days to 24 hours.

These and many other targets are revealed in the Prime Minister’s Delivery Unit report, the first of which was tabled in the House of Assembly last week.

There were 91 murders in 2018, a 25 percent reduction over the 122 murders recorded in 2017, according to police statistics.

The delivery unit, headed by Viana Gardiner, was launched in May 2018 and is responsible for tracking projects and establishing a roadmap to achieve goals.

The report offers some of the most up-to-date and specific goals for the administration since the Free National Movement’s 2017 party manifesto, touching on education, national security, land reform and the environment, among other areas.

The report contains previously unknown nuggets about life in the Bahamas with a particular focus on the speed of various government services. For example, the report reveals that in 2018, it took people more than 120 days to obtain a construction permit and more than four weeks to register a property. The administration wants to reduce the time it takes to get a construction permit to 30 days in 2021 by procuring and implementing “an electronic plan review and inspection system, which will allow for the electronic submission, review and approval of construction permit applications.”

The administration also wants to reduce the time it takes to register property to 14 days by 2021 by improving “the operational efficiently of the Registrar General’s Department by proceeding additional scans, recruiting additional staff and creating a feedback and complaint mechanism which would allow members of the public to file complaints and rate their experience.”

In education, the report reveals that in the 2017 to 2018 school year, 1,672 children were enrolled in pre-primary government sponsored programmes. The government’s 2021 target is 4,612. Officials also want to increase the percentage of third graders achieving A-D grads on GLAT language arts tests to 65 percent from 58 percent. To boost pre-school participation, officials say they will partner with private pre-schools to enroll 3 and 4-year-olds using a government sponsored voucher programme, in areas of greatest demand where supply is limited.

The report reveals that the recidivism rate for criminals was 21 percent in 2017, a rate officials want to reduce to 17 percent by 2021. Officials also want to boost the number of inmates on work release programmes to 52 by 2021, up from 25 in 2017. There were no weapon smuggling arrests in 2017 and only one drug smuggling arrest that year, the report reveals. By 2021 the administration wants to increase the number of arrests for such crimes to 16 each.

The report also noted that 3.5 percent of government services are online, a number officials want to boost to 17.5 percent by July 2021.

In addition, the administration wants to reduce the number of land-related applications pending in backlog to zero by 2021 and wants just 30 days to process land lease and crown grant applications.

For the most part, the report does not go into details concerning how officials will accomplish all of its goals.