Government efficiency programs will continue despite the discontinuation of the Doing Business (DB) report following internal data irregularities in the 2018 and 2020 results.
Secretary Jeremiah Belgica, director-general of the Anti-Red Tape Authority (ARTA) said the agency will be looking into a possible localized Doing Business Ranking for cities and municipalities to encourage competition and recognize good initiatives of local government units.
Belgica said ARTA aims to roll out the Report Card Survey by the end of this year to effectively measure the compliance of government agencies to the Ease of Doing Business (EODB) law.
Belgica said officials from ARTA, Ease of Doing Business and Anti-Red Tape Advisory Council and representatives from the private sector will meet today to discuss further steps to be taken after the announcement by the World Bank it will no longer conduct the annual survey that ranked countries on EODB.
Belgica said the global survey has brought into focus the importance of streamlining, re-engineering, and automation of government services throughout the international community.
The conduct of the survey has “sparked a healthy competitive race among world economies in ensuring ease of doing business in their respective jurisdictions,“ Belgica said.
He noted the survey motivated the Philippines to do better and raise the country’s competitiveness ranking, one of the reasons for the passage of Republic Act 11032 or the Ease of Doing Business and Efficient Government Service Delivery Act of 2018 that in turn paved the way for the creation of ARTA.
Belgica said ARTA’s ease of doing business initiatives were guided by the DB report where the country has seen a steady increase ever since ARTA was created from 124th in 2018 to 95th in 2019.
ARTA projected a significant increase in 2020 across the different indicators including Starting a Business and Getting Credit.
