The Minister of Territorial Administration, Dionísio Manuel da Fonseca, reported Thursday, in Huambo, that more than five million national citizens have already been served at the One-Stop Shops for Public Service (BUAP).
The BUAP, in operation in the country since September 2021, are part of the program of reform of local government of the State and improvement of the provision of services by municipal administrations.
At the moment, the BUAP service is available in 164 municipalities, 44 urban districts and 518 communes for issuance of the Citizen Card, a document that replaces the Certificate of Residence.
Dionísio Manuel da Fonseca, who was speaking during the 1st National Meeting on the BUAP, held in the city of Huambo, said that these bodies have, so far, roughly, fulfilled their role through the issuance and renewal of the Citizen Card and updating the residential information.
However, he continued, there is an urgent need to ensure that they fully fulfill their role, so that they are integrators of services for the use of municipal administrations.
Accordingly, he said that the Ministry of Territorial Administration continues to boost the process of strengthening decentralization and administrative deconcentration, so that more municipal services are available through the transfer of central bodies to municipal administrations.
He added that the process aims to ensure that citizens, at the level of their localities of residence, have easy access, among other services, to the Identity Card, birth registration, driving license, land deeds, business licenses and vehicle documents.
In this regard, the minister said that a specific training plan was under way, in conjunction with other ministerial departments, on the competences previously exercised by the central bodies.
With this measure, he said, it is intended to make the municipalities the epicentre of the provision of service to citizens, reduce administrative centralism and promote a more efficient and effective governance.
However, he stressed that the path of municipalization demands a change in the paradigm of central public administration, which undoubtedly presupposes the change in the way of thinking and acting of its actors.
“We will only have a strong country, if we also have strong municipalities (…); good practices in the municipalities should be able to influence the centre, in order to fulfil the slogan that life is done in the municipalities”.
In addition to members of the Ministry of Territorial Administration, the 1st National Meeting on BUAP, witnessed by the governor of Huambo, Lotti Nolika, also brought together staff from the Ministry of Justice and Human Rights, deputy governors and directors of the offices of Registries and Administrative Modernization of the 18 provinces of the country, as well as representatives of civil society organizations.
Source: Angola Press News Agency (APNA)