Barangay officials in Cagayan de Oro City should not impose their own charges on locational clearances issued to businesses since it violates the Duterte administration’s marching orders to all local governments in the country to ensure ‘ease of doing business’ for investors.
Acting City Administrator Teddy Sabuga-a and City Director Jane Dacallos of the Department of Interior and Local Governments (DILG) both issued this reminder to the city’s barangay officials during a Dec. 11 consultation on the P500 locational clearance fee to be charged to businesses held at the City Tourism Hall.
Some barangay officials came out with a position paper that elaborated on their stance against the P500 locational clearance fee that would be uniformly charged on all businesses.
In their paper, they reasoned that the proposed P500 fee is not commensurate to the environmental impact that major businesses like malls create on the communities they operate in.
But both Sabuga-a and Docallos reiterated that the issue is about the charges imposed by barangays on businesses that applied for locational clearance. Sabuga-a said some barangays charge higher than what City Hall charges to investors applying for business permits.
Docallos said she read the position paper presented by some barangays and added that while the barangays have the power to tax under the Local Government Code, their authority to tax is limited.
She said centralizing the processing of business permits including barangay clearances at City Hall which can be done online is part of the ‘zero contact’ policy mandated by President Rodrigo Duterte to avoid suspicion of corruption and to streamline the collection of revenue sourced from fees. (Stephen Capillas of CIO)
