DAVAO CITY (MindaNews/ 22 November)—A lone local government unit (LGU) in the Davao region is so far compliant out of the 20 that were given a workshop last year on the streamlining of business permit and licensing system (BPLS).
Only the municipality of San Isidro in Davao Oriental has complied with the streamlining initiative, Sarry Kinoc Jr.
, BPLS point person of the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) Region 11, said Thursday during a seminar on service excellence for LGU-BPLS frontliners held here.
With the streamlined system, San Isidro reduced its BPLS processing steps to four from 12, and the whole processing time takes only 27 minutes upon receipt of the pre-required documents.
Kinoc said that the 20 LGUs gave an assurance to comply with the standard BPLS system by 2012, while another batch of nine LGUs this year vowed to be compliant by 2013.
A total of 29 LGUs were targeted for BPLS workshops in two years.
These include all the municipalities in Davao Oriental and Mati City, eight LGUs in Davao del Norte with Tagum City, four LGUs in Davao del Sur with Digos City, four municipalities in Compostela Valley, and Davao City.
He said that except for San Isidro, the rest of last year’s batch has not complied with the BPLS standard as they are still completing the requirements.
Kinoc stressed that an executive order or an ordinance should be approved by the LGU as basis for complying with the standards of a streamlined BPLS.
The streamlining of basic mandatory standards on BPLS includes the number of processing steps, processing time, and signatories.
Kinoc cited that San Isidro has also established a joint inspection team (IJT), which is a part of the validation of compliance.
He noted that with IJT, government officers “will not be placed in a situation that offers an opportunity for corruption.”
The region’s DTI, along with the Department of the Interior and Local Government, has stressed that the BPLS standard system is a shift from the old notion that the role of the government is merely to apprehend violators.
They should be motivated to perform their roles effectively to the taxpayers and enforcing the mandatory standards, he said.
“It is about changing the views of LGU that it is not only for revenue collection, but for the creation of an investment-healthy society,” Kinoc stressed. (Lorie Ann A. Cascaro/MindaNews)
