Malabon City Hall goes digital

Malabon City has officially gone digital beginning with the computerization of City Hall’s revenue-generating operations as employees returned the other day for the first working day of 2006.

The Digital Infrastructure Project (DIP) is expected to help double the city government previous revenue take of a little over P500 million last year to more than P100 million in 2006, City Mayor Canuto "Tito" Oreta said.

The mayor also reminded city taxpayers that the Bureau of Permits and Licensing Office (BPLO) has opened their windows since yesterday for the application of new business permits and licenses and the renewal of old ones. He said they have until Jan. 20 to renew their permits and licenses.

"Malabon has finally responded to the challenge of modernization by computerizing its revenue offices. This will enable the local government to efficiently deliver the basic services to the people. The system is envisioned to generate more needed funds for the further development of the city," Oreta said.

Management Information System (MIS) chief Kristina Oflear said renewing of licenses will now be easier.

Records at City Hall will now be on-line, with documents linked and open for access by the City Mayor’s Office, the BPLO and the city treasury.

The digitalization project had a soft launching in July last year, but actual implementation had to be deferred to give city heads of departments ample time to secure, prepare and update important documents in their respective offices.

Oflear said that with the DIP, the Oreta administration also hopes to unmask delinquent taxpayers, who, though the years, continue to ignore their obligations to the city.

An estimated 4,000 to 5,000 business establishments are actively paying their tax obligations to the city, Oflear said. Records show there are about 2,000 delinquents.

"With DIP in full swing, these crooked traders will soon be unmasked and be made to pay," Oflear said.

Working under the slogan "Digital Malabon City: Sistematikong Serbisyo, Mabilis, Garantisado," the city government middle of last year entered into an agreement with Geodata Solutions Inc. (GSI) to provide the expertise and the hardware and software requirements of the project under a build-operate-transfer (BOT) scheme. — Jerry Botial, Pete Laude