Roseau Dominica, June 30th, 2011 - The Government of Dominica is taking pro-active measures to ensure that the possibility of future scams at the registry is minimized.
Cabinet recently approved the engagement of Canadian Bank Note to establish a secure civil registry and certificate issuing system.
The system will be designed to issue secured certificates of births, deaths and marriages to prevent fraud. Back in 1979 birth, marriage and death records of the island’s Registry were destroyed by fire.
Secretary to the Cabinet, Felix Gregoire, in an exclusive interview with GIS News said that this new project with Canadian Bank note will greatly assist Government in ensuring that records at the Registry Department are safe.
“For a while now, the Government has been doing its best to improve on the services offered at the Registry. As you know, there was a fire in 1979 and the registry has been trying to put back the records manually.
The Organisation of American States (OAS) has been assisting us to put a system in place and we have reached a point now where we are going to introduce the new birth certificates which will be very difficult to reproduce.
Where we are now is that the Ministry of Tourism and Legal Affairs will sign an agreement with Canadian Bank Note (CBN) to provide the birth certificates.
It is a project that is going to take five (5) years to complete. It is going to cost about EC five million dollars and there will be training of staff and other activities designed to ensure that we have a safe birth certificate.”
Secretary to the Cabinet, Felix Gregoire The engagement of Canadian Bank Note will provide a much higher level of security for all the records of the registry. The certificates to be issued will have design features that will deter fraudsters.
These features will be recognizable by departments of government who require the presentation of certificates. This development will give added assurance to the passport and immigration office and educational institutions of the authenticity of certificates presented to them.
The CBN assignment will be carried out at a cost to government of one point eight five million United States dollars to be paid over a period of five years.
The Canadian Bank Note will not only supply and install the equipment and develop customized software, but will also train staff and provide maintenance for the system during the five year period.
In the meantime, the Government of Dominica is expressing gratitude to the Organisation of American States (OAS) for its support in reconstructing manual records at the National Registry.
Following the fire of 1979, the Government of Dominica embarked on a project to reconstruct the records manually and to improve on the layout and work flow at the registry.
The OAS was instrumental in this effort and provided a number of computers and special software to facilitate the exercise along with the training of staff to operate the new system.
“The assistance we are getting is from the Organisation of American States. They are the ones who have been working with us for quite a while now to upgrade the services at the Registry.
So we should really thank the OAS for that contribution over a period of time. They have provided computers and they have provided training to the staff of the Registry. I would like to, on behalf of Government, thank them for that contribution.”
This development is in keeping with the on-going Public Sector Reform Programme which is geared at improving the quality of service offered by government departments to the general public.
Dominica News