04/26/2010 [ tribune.net.ph ]
Smaller cities in Metro Manila such as Mandaluyong, Marikina, Navotas and Valenzuela are way ahead of the big cities at speeding up the time needed to grant a new or renew a business permit.
For the above mentioned towns, the time spent by micro, small and medium-sized enterprises was from one to two weeks. Manila, Quezon City and Pasig were found at the bottom rung of the efficiency rating. It has taken them an average of one month to renew business permits.
This was one of the highlights of a soon to be released study on the efficiency of all cities in the metropolis in the processing of business permits undertaken by the Ateneo School of Government commissioned by the National Competitiveness Council (NCC).
The preliminary report which was presented to NCC chairman Cesar Bautista the other day, was only 85 percent complete as it did not yet include the respondents representing the big corporations represented by the local and foreign chambers.
A total of 398 enterprises representing mostly single proprietorships ranging in size from the very small to the medium-sized ones were interviewed by the survey researchers.
In the case of new businesses, processing time was between one and two months across all of the surveyed cities.
Assessing the result, Bautista said that not much has been accomplished since the NCC made its first survey three years ago. The same problems are still there and the lag time falls below the norm in the Asean.
Among the problems encountered by applicants for yearly renewal of their business permits, the most difficult to get was the fire safety clearance issued by the Bureau of Fire Protection, followed closely by getting a sanitation clearance and a barangay clearance.
Bautista pointed out that these same problems were already identified three years ago but little has been achieved to solve them.
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