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MANILA – Two more priority sectors are now part of the Anti-Red Tape Authority’s (ARTA) flagship program National Effort for Harmonization of Efficient Measures of Inter-related Agencies (NEHEMIA) that aims to reduce the government processes, requirements, and processing time by 52 percent.
ARTA Director General Jeremiah Belgica and Department of Human Settlements and Urban Development (DHSUD) Secretary Eduardo del Rosario led the virtual launch of the NEHEMIA program for housing sector on Oct. 19.
The ARTA, along with the Office of the Cabinet Secretariat, Department of Transportation, Land Transportation Franchising Regulatory Board, Department of the Interior and Local Government, and the Department of Trade and Industry also launched the logistics sector of the program on Oct. 20.
Belgica said the housing sector is one of the priority sectors of the NEHEMIA program as part of the Philippine Development Plan 2017-2020 goal to achieve decent and affordable shelter for Filipinos.
He lauded the cooperation and willingness of the agencies in the housing sector to expedite their processes through a collaborated effort for faster processing time, cheaper fees, and easier application.
“We thank our government partners for opening their doors to change. By working together, we are creating a decent and affordable home that every Filipino can own,” Belgica said.
According to the Modernizing Government Regulations (MGR) program by the Development Academy of the Philippines and the National Economic Development Authority, the country’s current housing demand is at 3.9 million units.
The MGR program expects the number to increase to 6.5 million by 2030.
The whole NEHEMIA program was formally launched on March 4, 2020 at the Premier Guest House in Malacañang through a memorandum of understanding as a sign of commitment between the lead builder agencies and priority sectors that also include energy, telecommunications, and food/pharmaceutical.
At this time of coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) pandemic, Belgica said ARTA and the other lead builder agencies pushed for urgent launch of the NEHEMIA program for logistics sector to facilitate efficient logistics services around the country.
Through NEHEMIA, the involved agencies will aim to reduce the procedures, requirements, and processing times of logistics services to enable unhampered delivery of goods.
Among others, they will remove overregulation and redundant requirements to come up with a streamlined process. As opposed to the previous process in which stickers are being required for the goods to be transported through local government units and other checkpoints, a QR code similar to the rapid pass technology will instead be used.
“We recognized that we have always been in dire need of a much made-efficient logistics services and the ongoing pandemic has simply highlighted this requirement,” Belgica said. “Now more than ever comes the need to eliminate undue regulations in the logistic sector in order to meet the heightened demand for goods at this time of crisis.”
The NEHEMIA for the telco sector was completed in July of this year and was able to cut down the processing time for building telecommunication towers from nine months to just 16 days. (PNA)
