Births and deaths registration in the country has been computerized. For the exercise to assume a national character, births and deaths in the regions and districts will be captured on a hard drive and brought to the central database in Accra to be processed. Launching the programme, the Deputy Minister of Local Government and Rural Development, Elvis Afriyie Ankrah, said the measure was to weed out unscrupulous persons who fraudulently obtain Ghanaian identification documents which they often misuse. He said there had been instances where certain people holding Ghanaian passports had been arrested and repatriated to Ghana only for the authorities to establish that they did not come from any town or village in Ghana. The computerisation system involves the digitisation (scanning and indexing) of all hard records of civil registration with security features. He said the computerization of the process would go a long way to check the disturbing phenomenon of the use of fraudulent documents to obtain travel and other identification documents. Mr. Afriyie-Ankrah said through the loopholes and high technology machines in the system, some people had engaged in insurance fraud putting in claims for living relations who were frequently registered as dead. "By their reckless behaviour, these miscreants, for their own selfish gains, end up destroying the credibility of our documents and the reputation of our citizens in the eyes of the world," he said. With the automation of the registration system he said, the registry would now produce certificates with enhanced security features that would help eliminate the influx of fraudulent registration in the system. Mr. Afriyie-Ankrah said the system would also generate a database of registered events that would facilitate sharing between the Registry and other agencies like the Ghana Statistical Service, the National Identification Authority, the Electoral Commission, Driver and Vehicle Licensing Authority and Social Security and National Insurance Trust (SSNIT). He said early registration of birth was critical for the government and the citizens because it gave legal status of one’s existence. "Apart from the proof of identity and entitlement for different services, early birth registration, to a large extent, helps the government to determine important basic concerns like educational and childcare facilities," he said. Mr. Afriyie-Ankrah said that the computerization system must be supported by all to ensure that the vision of attaining universal birth and death registration coverage was achieved. "I have no doubt that the commencement of this new process will further enhance data capture, storage, retrieval and sharing," he said. Mr. Steven Kweku Amoah, acting Registrar of Births and Deaths Registry said the new computerised certificate would help minimise the work load at the registry. "When registrations are made in the three regions, each of them copies it on to a hard disc and brought down to the head office for scanning and verification process before printing of the certificates," he said. Source: Ghanaian Times