By Katherine Stanley
Tico Times Staff | kstanley@ti…

It’s a job that would make most of us quake in our boots or call for our mommies – but not Jorge Woodbridge, apparently.

The Vice-Minister of Economy and Commerce has been assigned the task of getting rid of government institutions’ unnecessary trámites, or bureaucratic processes. Institutional Coordination Minister Marco Vargas announced Woodbridge’s new assignment at a press conference following President Oscar Arias’ weekly Cabinet meeting yesterday.

Woodbridge will have “special political power” over even the heads of government institutions to study, then eliminate their excess bureaucracy. His first stop: the National Technical Secretariat of the Environment Ministry (SETENA), where he is already working almost full-time, Vargas said.

Excess trámites at SETENA, which is charged with evaluating environmental impact studies for all development, include a central commission that sees all projects four times when one would do, according to Vargas.

“It’s really a sickness we have,” the minister said of Costa Rica’s infamous tramitología.