ARTA monitors gov’t agencies’ compliance to ease of doing biz law

The Anti-Red Tape Authority (ARTA) has started random on-site inspections of government agencies to monitor their compliance of the Ease of Doing Business (EODB) Law.

During their inspection at the Land Transportation Regulatory Board, ARTA Director-General Jeremiah Belgica stressed the need for the government agencies to comply with the ARTA’s template of the citizen’s charter.

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

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

Belgica has recommended to government agencies to expedite their operations, particularly once the clients are able to pay the required transaction fees. “Agencies should not let people wait any longer if their application could be fast-tracked,” he added.

He said the agencies must streamline and automate their processes to further provide better services to the people, and should stay away from excessive bureaucratic or red-tape operations, especially during the current pandemic.

Under the ease of doing business law, agencies are expected to simplify their procedures and processes for the issuance of business licenses, clearances, permits, certifications, or authorizations, and must reduce the processing time for documents sought.

Belgica said they are pushing automated operations on permit processing and digital transactions on payment among the government agencies. He suggested that agencies should allow the release of documents through courier services.

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