To those of us that live and work in Costa Rica there is no doubt that the bureaucratic procedures to establish a business is time consuming. Even more so when part of the requirement is the approval of the Costa Rican Environmental Agency – SETENA. The SETENA is the true bottleneck in Costa Rica.
In an effort to determine why the approval procedures at SETENA drag on for years and years the Minister of the Environment has ordered the intervention of SETANA for a period of 90 days. During this time period an intervention teams will take over the administration of SETENA.
Under the current system it takes SETANA an average of 4 years to approve a residential development, 3 years to approve highway construction, 2 years to approve gas stations.
The Agency has 30,000 accumulated files and more than 400 permits for the transportation of fuel which have not been resolved. The agency receives 3,000 files per year.
The government hopes to restructure the Agency to expedite the processing of the files under review.
