…more than 25,000 birth certificates issued in January
THE General Register Office for the month of January 2011 has issued 25,300 birth certificates, 3,450 marriage certificates and 2,300 death certificates that also include those processed from a total of 7,689 applications for birth certificates, 590 for deaths and 1,042 for marriage during the month. During February 1 to 14, the GRO received applications for birth, marriage and death certificates to the amount of 4,022, 517 and 327 respectively.

Registrar General of the GRO, Ms. Greta McDonald, during an interview with the National Communications Network (NCN) affirmed that there is no backlog of applications at the GRO as the staff continue to work tirelessly to ensure that applications are processed and certificates delivered in a timely manner.

According to McDonald, the GRO has also been making significant strides in ensuring that residents in Amerindian communities are able to register births and apply for certificates.

Since 2002, the GRO initiated a project called ‘Registration of births for Amerindians’ where officers visited several communities to find out why persons in those communities were not issued with birth certificates.

“We did a lot of work but we did not get to go to all of the villages because of the layout. We worked on it in 2003 to 2006,” the Registrar General said.

In 2006, with the involvement of the Ministry of Amerindian Affairs thousands of affidavits were delivered to the GRO for the registration of births for persons to enable them to register for the National Identification Cards (ID) cards.

McDonald said that during this time the GRO received about 5000 applications on a weekly basis. She hoped that that project would have been completed by now but it continues as affidavits are still being received from the Ministry of Amerindian Affairs.
The GRO is also assisted by the Ministry of Health and the Catholic and Anglican churches in this project.

McDonald said that most of the applications for birth certificates that are coming out of these communities now are for children as those for adults have already been completed.

The Registrar General said the GRO is therefore not responsible for persons who have not been issued birth certificates since the project started since 2002.

She stated that the project was not initiated for elections but it was based on the GRO’s view that everyone is entitled to a birth certificate.

The processing of certificates takes about four weeks to be completed and each application is marked by the dates it is received and dispatched by the GRO.

McDonald added that after the four-week processing period if the applicant does not receive it he/she can go into the GRO with proof of application and they will be facilitated there.

There are currently 15 writers in the GRO and each writes about 100 certificates on a daily basis.
As soon as an application is received by the GRO processing begins.