PUTRAJAYA: The approval period for six types of licences has been reduced from seven days to 24 hours under the Sistem i-Lesen introduced by the Local Government Development Ministry (KPKT).

Minister Nga Kor Ming said the six licences are Commercial, Industrial and Institutional Collection Licence, Household Collection Licence, Public Cleansing Licence; Construction Collection Licence, Long Distance Transport Licence, and Facility Operation Disposal Licence.

He said the Sistem i-Lesen, jointly developed by the National Solid Waste Management Department (JPSPN) and SWCorp solid waste and public cleansing company, could improve productivity by up to 90 per cent.

"Through the Sistem i-Lesen, the time period taken by JPSPN to approve a licence application is 24 hours after payment is made, compared to seven days previously under the manual method," he said in his speech at the launch of the Digitalisation Initiative for the National Solid Waste and Public Cleansing Management Industry here today. His speech was delivered by KPKT secretary-general Datuk M Noor Azman Taib.

Nga said payments for licence fees under the Sistem i-Lesen could be made 'immediately, anytime and wherever licence applicants are', compared to the previous method of making payments manually at JPSPN counters.

He said more than 9,000 industry players in solid waste management and public cleansing services could pay for their licence fees through the Financial Process Exchange (FPX) with any of the 33 banking institutions cooperating with Affin Islamic Bank Bhd.

"These contactless transactions will indirectly reduce the time and energy needed by companies to be physically present at this ministry to make licence fee payments manually," he said.

Nga said KPKT, in collaboration with JPSPN, planned to hold competency development programmes for workers involved in solid waste management to award workers competency cards.

He said the competency cards were to acknowledge that the workers had received proper training and had a basic understanding of the Solid Waste and Public Cleansing Management Act 2007 (Act 672).

He said there were about 18,289 local workers in the 3D (difficult, dangerous and dirty) sector who could do with better skills.

-- BERNAMA