By Dominic B. dela Cruz
Staff Reporter
Laoag City—The city government her is set to implement an electronic licensing system for local business.
The Sangguniang Panlungsod passed a resolution authorizing Laoag Mayor Michael M. Keon to enter into a memorandum of agreement (MOA) with the Depat. of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) for the implementation of the Electronic Business Permits and Licensing System (EBPLS) in a special session held July 15, 2019.
DICT deploys the EBPLS in collaboration with the Dept. of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) as recognition of good governance performance particularly in the adoption of good local governance.
The DICT is a government agency mandated by law to be the primary policy, planning, coordinating, implementing and administrative entity of the government that will plan, develop, and promote the national ICT development plan.
Under Section 11 (c) of RA 11032, “Ease of Doing Business and Efficient government Service Delivery Act of 2019”, it provides that cities/municipalities are mandated to automate their business permitting and licensing system or set up an electronic “Business One Stop Shop” (BOSS) within a period of three years upon the Act’s effectivity for a more efficient business registration processes.
City interior and local government officer Janet Duarte thanked the city government for passing the resolution, which is mandated by law and one way of helping the business sectors for easier transactions with the local government units particularly in the issuances of business permits and licenses.
Ms. Duarte said the DICT will provide the software of the EBPLS free of charge with the participation of the DILG and the DTI working together to come up this system.
With this system, Ms. Duarte said that it will no longer be the businesspersons who will process their business permits but it will the system which will process them.
“It will no longer be the responsibility of the businessman a mapan mangsurot-surot wennu mangbitbit dagitay papeles nan to avoid the presence of fixers in the transaction process,” Ms. Duarte said.
However, she stressed that all requirements needed for business permits, either for new businesses or permit renewal should be complete and submitted to the receiving officer.
With this new system, Ms. Duarte said the “Zero Contact Policy” will be implemented because the businesspersons can also pay at Landbank and not only at the city treasurer’s office.
The Ilocos Time learned that Laoag City will be the first LGU in the province of Ilocos Norte to use this new system.
Laoag councilor and businessperson Handy Lao said this new system will be of great help to the business sector considering that this will help all business owners secure their business permits and licenses easier and they will no longer carry documents from one place to another.