ILOILO City – The period for the renewal of business permits ended last night. Today, the city government will start inspecting business establishments.
“Ang mga wala maka-renew pasaraduhan ta until makakuha permit with penalty na,” said Mayor Jerry Treñas.
Yesterday morning, Business Permits and Licensing Office (BPLO) head Norman Tabud said some 9,000 businesses out the target 16,391 were issued permits.
As of this writing yesterday afternoon, business owners were still crowding city hall’s one-stop shop to process their business permits.
According to Tabud, by noon about 11,000 businesses managed to pay while the computation for 14,000 others were already complete for the next step with was the payment.
“Wala na sang extension so dapat makasulod ang application today. As long as may ara pa clients within the premises of the one-stop shop i-accommodate gid naton,” Tabud said.
He added: “Ang ginalagas man lang is the payment — dapat maka-pay sila. Ang printing sang permit and business license plate to follow na lang after Jan. 20.”
In today’s start of inspections, the BPLO would be assisted by the Bureau of Fire Protection, City Tourism and Development Office and the City Treasure’s Office.
Treñas recently reprimanded Tabud for complaining that the latter’s office did not have enough logistics to check if some businesses were operating without permits.
“Nag-create na ko gani task force para mabuligan sya,” stressed the mayor.
BPLO’s 2018 data showed that the business sector here was predominantly made up of microenterprises – around 90 percent of which had asset sizes of not more than P3 million.
The most prevalent type of businesses in the city were in wholesale trade and merchandising, followed by the food and beverage and hospitality sectors, with real estate and leasing coming in fourth.
It recently came to Treñas’ attention that a septic tank desludging company had long been operating without a business permit.
He was referring to the Malabanan Siphoning Services which littered the city with stickers advertising its services yet the BPLO had no idea it did not have a permit.
“So very disappointing, it should not happen again,” Treñas stressed./PN
