MANILA, Philippines – The Department of Finance (DOF) has received a P21.5-million grant from the from the German government owned-development bank Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau (KfW) Group that will be used to intensify its efforts to cut red tape across government.
The funds will go to the government’s Inter-Agency Business Process Interoperability (IABPI) Program, which aims to streamline the process of issuing permits for imports and exports from the current two weeks to a maximum of only 3 days, said Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez III in a statement on Monday, November 7.
Finance Undersecretary Gil Beltran, who was appointed as the agency’s anti-red tape car, said that IABPI would but would also contribute to an increase in revenues, facilitate regional trade links and the entry or expansion of businesses in the country.
“The major cause of red tape in government is that agencies act and operate in isolation of each other,” Beltran explained.
Besides simplifying import and export documentation, the program also aims to develop policies to “oversee, manage and harmonize transactions of all regulatory agencies” involved a processes by establishing protocols to link their information with each other,” he added.
Amazon inspired streamlining
Aside from the IABPI program, the DOF is also working with the Department of Information and Communication Technology (DICT) to create an automated business and citizen data bank portal or website.
The website would serve as a one-stop shop for government agencies and corporate entities to easily track and validate individual records, thus making it easier for individuals and businesses to prove their legitimacy.
Dominguez said that he is envisioning a system comparable to the one used by the online buying portal Amazon.com, which can process millions of purchases from clients by requiring just a one-time registration of pertinent data that can then be validated and used for all transactions.
“Our IT (information technology) people are working closely with revenue people to make things like that as simple as possible. If Amazon can do that with I don’t know how many millions of customers, I think we can certainly do something like that,” Dominguez said.
Beltran said the DOF and the DICT are now in the process of identifying the data to be gathered from various government agencies for the portal.
A minimal fee would be charged for the use of the portal when it becomes available to the public, he added. – Rappler.com