For the Minister of State and head of the President's Civil House, the "digitalization of public services reduces bureaucracy," the "excessive bureaucracy" has sustained the logic of "forging difficulties to sell facilities."
"That is, making it difficult to provide the service so that the citizen is forced to pay illegally for the service. This is what we call corruption, the same as saying that excessive bureaucracy generates corruption," said Adão de Almeida.
According to the governor, by achieving "simplification, reducing bureaucracy and digitalizing public services", "corruption in public services" was reduced.
At the public presentation of "Simplifica 1.0", Adão de Almeida stressed that the project "is also an instrument at the service of fighting corruption in public administration".
"Our strategic objective of diversifying the economy and encouraging private national and foreign investment will be seriously compromised if we are not able to improve our capacity to provide public services," he urged.
The "Simplifica 1.0" is a Government project aimed at simplifying and debureaucratizing public services in the central and local organs of the State.
The Secretary of the President of the Republic for State Reform, Pedro Fiete, said on the occasion that the project includes the simplification of more than 30 administrative acts, including for the treatment of identity cards, licenses, among others.
Pedro Fiete reported that the project, which aims to make public administration "modern, less bureaucratic and with a high standard of efficiency", is the result of a survey conducted in October 2020.
In Angola, according to the survey that originated the creation of "Simplifica 1.0", the identity card and the public construction license are the "most difficult documents to deal with" and the health and education services as "those that must improve the most".
The project standardizes the car registration and the car title, defines a single window for the concession of land rights, eliminates the birth registration as a requirement for dealing with the identity card, extends the deadlines for the driver's license, discontinues the criminal record requirement for presentation in the public administration, among others.
Adão de Almeida also considered that providing quality public service "is cheaper than providing it without quality", noting that "when the public administration is inefficient in relation to the services it provides, it becomes discredited and loses authority".
"Reversing the cycle and making a trajectory towards excellence is not an option. It is an obligation. Pursuing excellence in public service delivery is difficult, takes a long time and requires a lot of work," he stressed.
Simplifica 1.0", said the Minister of State, intends "to be just another contribution in this direction [of excellence], without any pretensions or vocation of being an instrument to solve all problems.
Adão de Almeida, who presented "achievable dreams" for public administration, urged those present to reflect on an administrative culture that "urgently needs to be overcome," considering that public administration is "departmentalized.
"If it is useful for organizational purposes, it is already questionable for the purpose of defining the way of public action. The departmentalization of administrative action generates confusion, reduces efficiency, duplicates public intervention, and complicates citizens' lives," he argued.
The minister stressed that improving the provision of public services "does not depend only on the State, but also on the citizen who demands the service.
"Making the citizen realize this is a task for all of us," Adão de Almeida assumed.
