…millions of GRO records now digitized

THE General Registrar’s Office (GRO) has this year issued a total of 300,000 birth certificates and is working to computerise its records — a task which has so far seen 3.5 million records being transferred from paper to electronic format.

Records have been compiled for the period 1987 to 1997, Minister of Citizenship, Winston Felix, told the National Assembly on Tuesday as the Committee of Supply perused the 2017 budget estimates for the ministry he heads.

Felix said the ongoing exercise will see the unit carrying out similar works for the 100-year period: 1896-1986, after prospective contractors failed to meet the required stipulations.
The sum of $3.5M has so far been expended on the exercise, and the GRO internal staff will be tasked with undertaking additional volumes of work spanning the 1896-1986 period, Felix told the House.

“We have been calculating our progress by years,” he said, as Opposition Members of Parliament queried the sum of $194M which has been allocated for such works for the fiscal year 2017.
Following a period of back and forth in regard to questions and answers, Felix informed MPs that the sum of only $3M has been spent on the compilation of data for the 10-year period. “The money is still with us; we will now mobilise internally to proceed with this project”, he said, noting that the two entities which had indicated interest in the project did not meet the requisite standard.

He said the remaining $191M will be returned to the Consolidated Fund and the sum of $194M budgeted for 2017 will be utilised for the continuation of the computerisation process.

Meanwhile, persons have been receiving upgraded birth certificates, which are being produced with added security features, making the document difficult to be replicated. As details of the current expenditure came in for perusal on Tuesday, Felix was grilled by the Opposition on the projected sum of $37.5M for 2017, as opposed to the $9.5M which were set for the funding of print and non-print materials for 2016.

“Mr. Speaker, the cost went up because there was need for us to provide or produce a birth certificate that is secure,” Felix said. He told the House that the quality of paper used is of a high standard and cannot be easily replicated, and the security features have also been upgraded.

Meanwhile, a sum of $4M has been set aside in the 2017 budget for a minibus which will aid the GRO to carry out its functions. Felix informed the House that, for many outreaches, the cost of moving staff using rental vehicles “is an expensive one.” As such, he noted the rental cost will be erased with the purchase of the agency’s own vehicle.