Cagayan de Oro City, 3 July 2023-- During the Flag-Raising Program at City Hall this week, the Anti-Red Tape Authority (ARTA) presented a Certificate of Commendation to the City Government of Cagayan de Oro, recognizing its fully functional Electronic Business One-Stop Shop (eBOSS) and streamlined licensing and permitting processes.
The city is the first in Mindanao, and one (1) of only two (2) local government units (LGUs) outside Metro Manila to earn the commendation.
ARTA Northern Mindanao Regional Field Office 10 Chief Dr. Jutchel Nayra, presented the commendation to City Mayor Rolando “Klarex” A. Uy. The city had initially been cited by Secretary Ernesto V. Perez during the inauguration of the said office last June 22.
As early as the mid1990s, Cagayan de Oro had pioneered the automation of its Business Permit Licensing (BPLS) and Real Property Tax Systems (RPTS), and in 2010 activated the city's Business One-Stop Shop (BOSS) with the support of the Local Implementation of National Competitiveness for Economic Growth (LINC-EG) project of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).
Over the years, the City Finance Department and the Business Permits and Licensing Division (BPLD) further refined its systems, introducing onsite touchscreen kiosks, electronic signatures, 3-step business permit application and non-repetitive filing in 2014, clinching for Cagayan de Oro the top spot in the Department of Science and Technology’s (DOST’s) e-Readiness Survey that same year.
Then, working with the City Management Information Systems and Innovations Department (CMISID) they took business registration and payment of taxes and fees fully online in 2017 with the homegrown Internet Online Service (iOS), earning for the city the Best in Digital Finance Empowerment Award at the Digital Cities PH Awards that year.
More recently, Cagayan de Oro was one of the first cities to integrate Barangay Clearance and Bureau of Fire Inspection fees in its system and collocate Building Permitting in the eBOSS, fully complying with the Ease of Doine Business (EODB) law. This was accomplished through cooperation among the offices concerned, facilitated by the Cagayan de Oro City Trade and Investment Promotions Center (Oro-TIPC), which serves as the technical working group (TWG) coordinator of the city's EODB oversight committee. n
