Wednesday, July 23, 2008 IFC stands firm on survey results By Grace L. Plata
THE International Finance Corporation (IFC) during an almost two-hour discussion with the City Council has stood firm on its survey results saying Davao City is a difficult place to do business.
Councilor Victorio Advincula questioned Davao City Promotions and Investment Center (DCIPC) Chief Roberto Teo on which office is responsible for making the procedure in business application.
In response, Councilor Bonifacio Militar said: "Any improvement or reform on this matter is to be made not by the Business Bureau, the Treasurer's Office or the Assessors Office, but by the City Council, which crafted the law prescribing the guidelines for registration of business applicants."
Advincula wanted to find out in order to make the city's one-stop shop more efficient after realizing that the IFC is standing its ground on the report.
As if to put into concrete picture the IFC report, the Filinvest has written the City Council bewailing the inaction on their application while the same body is so heat up in welcoming the Ayala investment with the Floirendos.
IFC Associate Operations Officer Gerlyn Catangui refused to be cowed by the councilors who were aggravated by the report, as most of them believe the methodology of the survey is erroneous, thus its results are unreliable.
IFC had only three respondents for the Davao City survey. "We used a method based on time of the process and applied it for all cities," Catangui said.
She added that the number of face-to-face transactions an applicant goes through before being issued a permit was among their basis.
But Councilor Ma. Belen Sunga-Acosta said it is unfair for IFC to count a few minutes of face-to-face transaction as one calendar day when a lot of these kinds of transactions may be made within the eight-hour office shift.
DCIPC Chief Teo, though agreeing with the councilors' stand, said they might as well use those data that are accurate to improve the system. This after the survey has already been published and "the damage has been done," he added.
"Though the comparison is not on equal footing, a positive step we have to adapt is to reduce the face-to-face transactions. We should look into our one-stop shop so that the applicants can just submit the applications and the Business Bureau will take care of the process thus reducing the personal transaction of applicants with other offices," Teo said.
Advincula then asked Teo who is really in-charge of crafting the application procedure to which Teo said it may be either of the three -- Business Bureau, City Treasurer's or City Assessor's.
However, Militar stood up and said the body should not hold any of these three offices responsible as it is the City Council who prescribed the guidelines through an ordinance passed by the 15th Council.
Vice Mayor Sara Z. Duterte, in effect, asked the City Council Secretariat to find the ordinance in its files and give each of the councilors a copy for review so they can propose changes on the next session to make business application in the city faster and more efficient.
