Quezon City easing business permits issuance system
The Quezon City government will pass an order or ordinance that will drastically reduce the number of steps required to secure business and construction permits and licenses in the city by next year.
Quezon City Mayor Herbert Bautista said the order would institute changes in the way business and construction permits and licenses were being issued now.
One of the issues that the order hoped to address, he said, was the “turf” mentality of employees of regulatory offices at the Quezon City Hall.
“The turf mentality should be eliminated and agencies should coordinate to improve (business licensing) processes,” he said in a statement, adding that this kind of attitude greatly contributed to the slowness and inefficiency of the process of issuing permits and licenses.
According to the latest Doing Business Survey, which used Quezon City as the sample city for the Philippines, the city’s business permit issuance system had 15 procedures that took 35 days to complete from application filing to permit issuance.
The construction permit issuance system was composed of 30 steps and took 85 days to complete.
Apart from introducing changes to the system, Bautista said a dedicated inspection team would be created to facilitate the processing of various permits.
Quezon City has the largest number of registered businesses in the country with 59,712.
According to Doing Business Survey author Sylvia Solf, local governments and regulatory offices should work together to streamline their procedures, especially as more and more businesses are acquiring business permits.
Co-author Jean Marie Lobet added that unnecessary steps in the system should be removed and the whole system be made less complex. The government should also work on reviewing and reconciling conflicting local and national laws on business regulations.
Trade Undersecretary Cristino Panlilio said other local government units should follow Quezon City’s lead and streamline their own business permit and licensing systems.
