Simplification of Administrative Procedures in Guatemala

The proposal or initiative of Law 5766 for the simplification of requirements for administrative procedures that we hope will be published in May 2021 follows the same philosophy that the most advanced economies in the region have implemented in the last decade and mostly in 2020 (1).

The aforementioned initiative will be an important step towards the management of processes before government entities electronically and without physical presence, which is convenient in these times, and will allow agility, as well as activate the need for more robust platforms by the Government of Guatemala. This law initiative also allows the exchange of information, regularization of databases and servers, as well as other simplification standards for administrative processes. This would reduce the bureaucracy that involves a greater number of people to do a single task, as occurs in large organizations that not having a large number of people are efficient and provide an adequate service to their clients, also reducing the excessive use of paper, helping the environment. It would also allow systems engineers and professionals who are aware of new information trends to participate and provide more services without neglecting information security as required by ISO 27001.

We have heard the phrase “time is money” and we also know that those who learn to be agile survive more than those who are very big or heavy. In this sense, it is valuable that our government institutions are relieved and that they can respond more effectively to administrative processes, which in fact is one of the aspects that qualify the international indicators of the country Doing Business (2) in which Guatemala has had low rating (96th out of 189 countries).

The procedures that are reduced according to initiative 5766 are specifically the Mercantile ones, which include the opening of a new business in the country, registration of trademarks and copyrights, invention patents, registration of Foundations, Associations and other legal persons, maquila and zone frank, labor inspection procedures, as well as others, not so in Fiscal before SAT, labor before Social Security – IGSS.

There are very valuable definitions in this initiative of Law 5766 with 16 pages and 42 Articles such as:

• i. The electronic document, which is that document that was born into legal life electronically, is defined in Article 4 of the project.
• ii. Mechanisms for qualifying services are established in Article 11.
• iii. Full validity is established for documents apostilled according to the Hague convention, without the need for accreditation before a public entity or the translation of the apostille seal, in Article 18.
• iv. The electronic means that allow remote procedures to be carried out or the improvement of their files are defined, with the appropriate security conditions, incorporating the advanced electronic signature in Article 23. This same Article refers that the websites or institutional portals that implement the management of administrative procedures must be available without time restrictions.
• v. Entities are ordered to implement electronic records, with databases they must have copies (backups) and be kept on local or remote servers, according to Article 28.
• vi. The State Interconnectivity refers to simplify procedures, according to Article 31, the Institutional Portals to facilitate the services to the user according to Article 32, as well as the electronic Catalogs with the support of the Ministry of Economy who will develop a web page of services according to Article 35.

© mrmohock / AdobeStock.com

For which the initiative of Law 5766 establishes a period of six months to place your forms and applications online, through web pages developed for this purpose, which would probably be in April 2021, because the Decree would enter into force ninety (90) days after its publication in the Official Gazette.

Likewise, a period of two (2) years is set to implement systems that allow procedures to be carried out in electronic media, which would probably be in July 2023.
For Guatemala and its economy, it is important to renew the vision through this type of initiative that will allow to begin to institute the electronic Government that is required in these times. Economy and vision are two ingredients that we must always take into account to make improvements and at ECOVIS GUATEMALA we can support you to have the agility required in your business and procedures.