AFTER encouraging Dabawenyos to use online applications for business permit application and renewal in 2023, only one percent utilized the portal due to system glitches.

Davao City Councilor Bernie Al-ag, chairperson of the committee on trade, commerce, and industry said that some clients opted to apply manually instead of through online transactions.

Al-ag said during their committee hearing, multiple concerns have been raised as to why Dabawenyos opted to manually process the application for a business permit.

“Isa na didto ang hinay ang atong internet diri sa city (One of the problems that we are facing is the slow internet in the city),” he said.

“Naay mga problema sa atong website nga kinahanglan nga atong i-adjust pati ang atoang hardware, atong database pud. Wala tay klaro man gud nga database kung asa na ipang butang (There are issues in our website that we need to fix including its hardware and database since we really don’t have a clear database bank),” he added.

Aside from this, he said that funding would also be needed in upgrading and resolving the digitization of government transactions.

“This will not happen kung wala’y budget i-butang (if we don’t have a budget). If we don’t have technical people to really do the work, wala tay competent people this is not possible,” he said.

He said to answer these issues and concerns, they have to benchmark other cities that have already implemented digitization of government transactions.

“Mao ng gusto nato mag-learn na ta og ditso kung kinsa tong hawod ani (we need to learn from them, those who are good with this type of transformation), partner with them in order to hasten our transformation to digitization,” Al-ag said.

He said that on March 9, 2023, they are set to meet and visit Valenzuela City as they were the first in the country to implement the digitization of government transactions. KSD