Thursday, October 18, 2007 Lapu gives itself ‘very high’ rating
DESPITE allegations of corruption in releasing business permits, among others, the Lapu-Lapu City Government gave itself a “high” rating in the field of administration.
The evaluation, although supervised by the Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG), was given by the Lapu-Lapu department heads themselves.
The DILG used a grading system and gave out questionnaires with department heads as respondents.
The evaluation has five performance and productivity key areas: governance, administration, social services, economic development and environmental management.
The “state of local government report for 2006” gave the City a “high to a very high” rating in administration.
This component includes the effectiveness of the bids and awards committee, customer service, a streamlined civil application process and the processing time in the issuance of a business permit, building permit and real property documents.
‘Bias-free’
City Administrator Teodulo Ybañez said that even if this was a self-evaluation, the result was “bias-free” because each respondent was given freedom to give inputs and comments on areas considered weak and how to improve them.
He said results of the survey will allow people to know what their mayor has been up to, and for the local officials to know how their peers in other departments have succeeded.
The survey said the processing of business permits will take only 45 minutes; four hours for a building permit; and one hour for a real property document.
Tax collection accomplishment for 2006 was “108 percent” with collections reaching P600,669,69, which is over the targeted P555,584,696.
Property tax collection was higher, at P51.86 million against the target of P42 million.
However, the report only included 20 of the disbursements that the Commission on Audit (COA) found “negative” or in need of explaining because of incomplete data.
Earlier, 24 members of the Mactan Island Chamber of Commerce Inc. (MICCI) said in its survey before and after the May elections that they were asked for money in exchange for the speedy issuance of their business permits.
MICCI president Efrain Pelaez Jr., through his Coralpoint Foundation, also filed a complaint before the Office of the Ombudsman-Visayas implicating the city’s bids and awards committee in the allegedly anomalous purchase of 470 computers for all of the city’s public schools. (AIV )
