The Department of Citizenship is forecasting that within the next two years Guyana’s visa and birth certification process will be fully digitised while work continues on the development of a national identity system where everyone will be recognised by a number, Minister of Citizenship Winston Felix said.
Two years into the APNU/AFC coalition government’s five year term in office, Felix said there are many plans to further enhance and better the services being experienced by Guyanese.
He said that there are plans to have foreigners apply for visas to enter Guyana online which will remove the stresses involved in the process. “The introduction of the online facility would further reduce waiting time, but lots of work has to be done that includes sourcing equipment, testing to see how the system would work before its implemented,” he said.
In 2016, visas of various categories were issued to 1,163 nationals from 76 countries. Also, he said through the e-governance network, the Ministry is also seeking to have passports applications done online.
Meanwhile, Minister Felix explained that the creation of the national identity system will seek to equip citizens with one unique identification number. “The same ID number you have at birth, which would be unique, would be the one at the time of registration. This number will be featured until death, this is useful to prevent fraud,” he said. The national identification system stems from pronouncements by the President David Granger on the proposed amendment of the National Registration Bill to include biometrics of citizens to be recorded on their national registration cards. He said the creation of this database will follow upon the completion of the digitisation of the General Register’s Office (GRO).

Database of records

Minister Felix said that a project has commenced to build a database of records.
The government has been working with UNICEF to ensure all children are registered at birth to achieve 100 percent birth registration. Through this collaboration, Felix said government will undertake outreaches in outlying regions with the exception of Regions Three and Four. “We are pushing for birth side registration to ensure all births are registered in the first place and where there is a slippage there will be outreaches,” he said. The Citizenship Minister said with the anticipation of a digitized birth certificate, there are also new security features on new birth certificates, one being if it is copied it will be printed with a watermark stating “copy”. He said all the waiting time for birth certificates will be slashed.
On the issue of improving the passport services, Felix said efforts at decentralisation will continue. The days of long lines at the Central Immigration and Passport office are over and today citizens have testified of the dramatic shortened time they spend to transact business there. Minister Felix said allocations have been made and tenders will go out for the construction of passport offices in Linden and New Amsterdam. “Very soon we are going to tender for an office in New Amsterdam, we have identified a plot of land in Linden,” he said.
He said that Anna Regina and Bartica are under consideration for offices while there is the possibility for Regions Eight and Nine to facilitate mobile service.
He explained that this process seeks to improve the system the delivery of higher quality service to citizens.

In the 2017 National Budget, the sum of $625M was allocated for Citizenship and Immigration Services, including strategies to cover births, deaths and marriages, issuance of work permits and granting of citizenship. An additional $50M was budgeted for the establishment of two new passport offices. Felix added that by the end of 2017, persons in all the ten administrative regions will be able to apply for birth, marriage and death certificates in their communities. He said persons are appreciative of the services provided and have been making full use of them.
Cuban welcomed
Meanwhile, noting that there has been an influx of Cubans to Guyana, Minister Felix said he welcomes such since they visit to conduct business and are not problematic although there are cases of some overstaying their time, which is in the minority. Touching on the topic of deportation to Guyana, Felix said there has been nothing extraordinary or out of the ordinary since it fluctuates. “Before all this big noise about deportees, we are accustomed to receiving deportees, it is not a new phenomenon, and it’s not usually announced publically, but it happens,” he said. Minister Felix stated “despite all the criticisms, the APNU/AFC government has done very well in each department to improve the quality of service offered to the public, by the end of five years it will get much better and there will be many things to shout about.”
He continued: “We inherited no ordinary set of circumstances which to operate and I think we have organised ourselves and worked through the challenges to create the successes we have achieved and there are still more to come.”