Ho, Dec. 26, GNA-The process of registration of business with the various local governing bodies is to be made uniform, fluid and transparent to raise compliance levels in the various districts. The issuance of building permits is also to be rationalized and standardized.

Mr Chris Joseph Azumah, Focal Person on the Private Sector Development Strategy at the Ministry of Local Government Rural Development and Environment (MLGRD&E) said this in Ho when opening a five-day workshop for 50 District Assemblies Staff drawn from the Municipal and district assemblies in the Volta Region. District Coordinating Directors, Finance, Budget and Development Officers, Engineers and private sector workers are attending the workshop.

Mr. Azumah said a series of workshops organised throughout the country were expected to raise commitment of staff and streamline registration processes in accordance with the structural and operational overhaul of the public sector to improve efficiency. He said currently the processes were varied, fees different and commitment of schedule officers poor dispelling clients who would want to register their businesses or get building permits. Mr Simon Bokor, a Resource Person, from the Institute of Local Government Studies (ILGS) said the programmed reform would stop the haphazard registration processes resulting in the nauseating notices of "Stop Work, Produce Permit and Pull It Down," being imprinted on uncompleted and sometimes finished buildings throughout the country. He said many people in private business refrain from registering their businesses because of the bureaucracy associated with the process. Mr. Bokor said the reform process was also seeking to change the apathetic attitudes of workers.

He said similar efforts to improve processes at the Courts; Ports, Licensing Office and the Registrar General's Department had reduced waiting time considerably.

Mr Bokor said suggestions from the various regional workshops would be collated, assessed, and then validated for a decision by stakeholders meeting to arrive at measures to improve the situation. He observed that numerous and tedious processes it bred corruption.