R

etno Ribawati, a 65-year-old catering-service owner in South Manggarai, South Jakarta, initially wanted to use the service of a middleman to obtain a business permit (SIUP).

'€œHe said he would charge me Rp 2 million [US$156] for the service. That was too expensive to me, so I decided to handle the permit by myself,'€ she told The Jakarta Post recently.

Retno, who started her business nine years ago, said she asked for information from the community unit (RW) head and then went to the subdistrict office to get more information on the permit issuance. She finally sorted out her permit at the one-stop integrated service (PTSP) at Tebet district office.

'€œThe process was quite easy and it was free,'€ she said, adding that she was glad that she did not use the middleman service.

She said the administration service was completely different from the past, when just getting a birth certificate could take weeks.

Retno said she submitted all required documents on a Friday and was issued the permit days later, on Tuesday.

She added that she had not had to go back and forth during the process.

'€œThey said they would call me once the permit was done. However, I came straight to the office today and it was finished,'€ she said.

She added that she hoped the administration could maintain the quality of the service, especially regarding punctuality and transparency.

Many other entrepreneurs of small and medium businesses have expressed their satisfaction with the services at the PTSP, a new agency that recently took over hundreds of permit-issuing responsibilities previously held by a multitude of agencies and working units.

There remains, nonetheless, room for improvement.

Dimas P. Muharam, a 26-year-old entrepreneur, said he appreciated the improvement, but said he hoped that the city administration would step up the online system.

Dimas, who founded a website-development and digital consultancy company, said the PSTP had announced that online registration for SIUPs had been activated. '€œI fulfilled all the requirements online, but when I went to the office to proceed to the next step, the officers said that they could not process my [online] application,'€ he said.

He was thus forced to repeat the process from the beginning, manually.

Dimas, who is blind, said the online system would be helpful for disabled people like him as they could fill the forms themselves at home.

'€œWe need other people'€™s help to fulfill them manually,'€ he said.

PTSP Agency head Noor Syamsu Hidayat said his agency was still perfecting the entire system, so they could not yet launch the online system.

'€œWe are still trying to find the most effective way to process all the permits and services,'€ he said.

Noor said the agency divided the services into three categories '€” easy, medium and difficult.

'€œEasy permits or documents like death certificates or domicile letters can be processed in one day,'€ he said.

He added that the issuance of medium permits like SIUPs for small and medium enterprises with initial capital of less than Rp 500 million could be completed in three days.

'€œMeanwhile, permits requiring a more complicated process like billboards can take up to 25 days,'€ he said.

Noor went on that once his agency had completed all outstanding permit-handling, it would publish all details of all permits, including timeframes, on its website.

He said the whole process would take time as the agency was still battling to complete more than 5,000 permits, the submissions of which predated the agency.

The city officiated the PTSP Agency in January, aiming to create a business-friendly bureaucracy by eliminating costly red tape for entrepreneurs and investors and to ease all permit processes for residents.

The PTSP Agency has 318 service locations, comprising one office at City Hall, five at municipal level, one in Thousand Islands regency, 44 at district level and 267 at subdistrict level.