FICC - Bureaucracy worst enemy to business

A survey carried out by the Federation of Israeli Chambers of Commerce shows that Israeli bureaucracy is still the main obstacle blocking free market activity.
 
The findings point at the Ministry of Health, the National Insurance Institute (NII), local authorities, and the Ministry of Transport as being the worst government agencies that hinder the Israeli business sector and create daily difficulties.
 
The survey was part of the Chambers of Commerce's campaign to reduce to the minimum the bureaucratic burden on business. 120 members of the Chambers of Commerce took part in the survey most of whom said that "officials' apathy, disregard to questions and wasting of expensive time" were frequent.
 
The respondents emphasized that a request for import license lodged with the Ministry of Health sometimes took as long as six months to grant, and that the wait for service, even when an appointment was made in advance, lasted over an hour.
 
Bureaucratic obstacle were listed by the respondents as follows:
Waiting for the telephone to be answered was ranked the top obstacle; Response time to letters ( well over two months); The Ministry of Industry, Trade and Labor receives the public only once a week; Standards Institution of Israel takes up to three months to approve a standard, and it sometimes takes an hour for a telephone call to be answered; VAT, income tax, and the National Insurance Institute used aggressive operating methods.