Registration officers for Birth and Death registries across the country have been urged to make use of assembly members and unit committee members for effective registration of deaths in communities.
This, according to the Minister of State in-charge of Public Sector Reform, will improve their efficiency in serving their various communities.
Minister of State for Public Sector Reforms, Lydia Lamisi Akanvariba, made the observations when she paid a courtesy call on the Registrar of Birth and Death Registry (BDR), Samuel Adom Botchwey, in Accra.
The call was for the Minister and her team to familiarise themselves with the operations of the BDR’s works, their challenges to inform reforms and sustainability projects.
It was revealed that some officers of BDR work under trees in districts, no vehicles even at the head office, lack of office accommodation, among others. It also came out that registration of births has been smooth but the challenge with that of deaths are enormous.
Madam Akanvariba said “I want us to have that conversation with the assembly members. It should be part of our education that government can agree to give them something small to register them for the district.”
“The assembly man can help and say, somebody died here, let’s pick the information and send it to the district or inform the district officer. I have personally said that if we are able to use that key registration, we don’t need information from the hospitals because we know the number of people who are dead and those who are born,” the Minister added.
The Minister admitted that the work of the officers of BDR is very difficult but encouraged them not to give up in serving the country.
“Your work is very very important and very vital to this nation. If we register our births and deaths right, it will help the government to plan on how to employ,” she said.
The Registrar, Samuel Adom Botchwey, on his part said one of the challenges facing the Registry is mobility.
“Mobility has been a challenge and I am in talks with the sector Minister and the Common Fund Administrator to find out how to support us. Our accommodation, in terms of office accommodation has also been a challenge. When I came, I have been able to put together a consortium to design all offices for all our regional offices,” Mr. Botchwey added.
On the registration of deaths which has been a challenge for the them, Mr. Botchwey explained that the BDR is liaising with chiefs, imams, churches, and traditional leaders who will educate their members on the need to register deaths.
“The Act says that to register a dead person, you need to go through a process. The process is that either I have the medical report or coroners report. Here is the case when you go the rural areas and somebody dies, how can the person provide these reports, so they people decide, instead of going to the hospital to go through all these process, let me go and bury the person,” he said.
He added that “if we can get community elders to attest that the person is elderly or has been bedridden, we can bypass that process.”
By Timothy Antwi-Otoo|OnuaNews
