Olongapo automates revenue collection

OLONGAPO CITY -- The city government of Olongapo recently signed a P12.9-million deal with Amellar Consortium to computerized the city's revenue generation system.

In a press briefing held here last week, Olongapo City Mayor Kate Gordon said the turnkey computerization project is aimed at improving the city's revenue collection system.

"We want to give the best service to our people, and one way of doing that is by improving the revenues that we earn," Gordon said.

The Olongapo City government, which has, until now, employed manual processes in its revenue generation, has realized that the use of information technology will empower the city to meet the expectations that increasingly maturing taxpayers demand from local governments.

With the computerization project in place, Gordon said, the city's tax collection system will improve dramatically. What would normally take 10 days would only take about an hour once the whole process is automated.

Gordon said they would also be able to eliminate corruption. "There is corruption because people are tempted. With computerization it will now be easy for the department heads and even the mayor to do routine checks," she said.

Once the city's revenue generation process is automated, the city will be able to improve its collection efficiency. For 1999, the city's collection efficiency was only 50 percent; with computerization this is expected to reach 70 percent this year and 80 percent in 2001. By then, the city's taxable assessed value would have reached P2.5 billion.

The computerization project will initially cover priority areas such as the city assessor's office, the business permit and licensing office, the city treasurer's office, the public utilities department and the James L. Gordon Memorial Hospital.

Amellar's automated revenue generation system covers real property tax administration, business permits and licensing system and other miscellaneous revenues. Amellar's applications are all written and compiled using Informix 4-GL and can run on Unix, Windows NT and DOS.

According to Amellar president and chief executive officer Manuel Tabunda, his company has already completed hardware and software installation, temporary networking and applications set-up and customization.

Tabunda said the company is set to complete the encoding of all the property and business records of every barangay by the end of March in time for the tax collection in April.

Olongapo City's MIS consultant Martin Gutierrez said they will be able to complete and fully implement the project within 12 months.