ARTA checks nat’l agencies’ compliance to ease of doing biz law

MANILA – The Anti-Red Tape Authority (ARTA) on Tuesday started a series of random on-site inspections as part of its efforts to continuously monitor the compliance of various national government agencies to the Ease of Doing Business (EODB) Law.

ARTA Director-General Jeremiah Belgica cited the need for the government agencies to comply with the ARTA’s template of the citizen’s charter during their monitoring visit at the Land Transportation Regulatory Board.

The LTFRB’s citizen charter, regulations, and transactions were checked if they are compliant with the ARTA’s operations template under the Republic Act 11032, known as Ease of Doing Business and Efficient Government Services Delivery Act of 2018.

ARTA also inspected the LTFRB’s permit processing, office transactions, and other agency protocols.

Lawyer Ernesto Perez, ARTA deputy director-general (DDG) for Operations, said the authority’s operations group has been conducting series of compliance monitoring to ensure the provision of smooth and hassle-free services for the people.

“When we visit an agency for inspection, the first that we look into is the citizen’s charter if it is compliant with the ease of doing business law and it is streamlined, of course, it does not cause undue burden to the public,” Perez said in an interview.

The ARTA also inspected the operations at the Bureau of Animal Industry (BAI).

Streamlined operations, transactions

During the inspection, Belgica recommended to the government agencies to hasten their operations once the clients are able to pay the required fees for a particular transaction.

Belgica said the agencies should not let people wait any longer if their application could be fast-tracked.

“Hindi naman sinasabi ng ARTA na apruhaban niyo lahat, ang sinasabi natin aksyunan niyo agad (ARTA did not say to approve all the transactions, we are saying that you should act on it immediately),” he told the BAI officials during the ARTA’s surprise inspection at their office.

He said the agencies must streamline and automate their processes to further provide better services to the people.

Belgica added that the agencies should stay away from providing excessive bureaucracy or the red-tape operations, especially during the prevailing health crisis.

He noted the citizens’ concerns about online transactions with government agencies.

Under the ease of doing business, the agencies are expected to simplify their procedures and processes for the issuance of business licenses, clearances, permits, certifications, or authorizations.

The agencies should reduce the processing time to acquire the issued documents.

Belgica said ARTA is pushing automated operations on permit processing and digital transactions on payment among the government agencies.

He then recommended that the agencies should allow the release of documents through courier services as the ARTA also pushes for the issuance of the digital permits and licensing.

While pushing digital efforts for the ease of doing businesses, he said the government may face challenges in processing the manual backlogs.

The Ease of Doing Business law mandates all government offices and agencies including local government units, government-owned and -controlled corporations, and other government instrumentalities to provide services covering business and non-business-related transactions.

The law also adopts simplified procedures that will reduce red-tape and expedite transactions in government.