Senior Minister Yaw Osafo-Maafo has presented vehicles and motorbikes to the Births and Deaths Registry under the Public Sector Reform for Results Project (PSRRP) to enhance its service delivery.
The nine Nissan Hard Body pickups, one Toyota Hilux and 120 Motorbikes fixed with trackers and courier boxes, are to facilitate Births and Death registration in Ghana for an improved the database for public sector development.
Speaking to the Press before the handing over on Wednesday at the Office of the President Annex, the Senior Minister, Mr Yaw Osafo-Maafo, informed that, since the Registry was critical to functions of the public sector, it must be fully equipped to perform its functions properly.
In that regard, Mr. Osafo-Maafo said the Births and Deaths Registry needed to be decentralized properly under the Ministry of Local Government.
“There should be Births and Deaths Registry in every district in this country…If you get the data right, then population census becomes automatic,” he said.
The Senior Minister, explained the basis for the public sector reforms by saying that citizens and the private sector expected the public sector to be more responsive to their needs, “Particularly how quickly public services are delivered and how citizens and firms can convert their needs into opportunities.”
Mr Osafo-Maafo indicated that, when such swift service delivery by the public sector was achieved, the private sector would work better and that would increase the economic growth of the country.
The Acting Registrar for Births and Deaths Registry, Rev. Kingsley Asare Addo, expressed joy for receiving the facilities, saying that no vehicle would remain in Accra, but would all be distributed to the six new regions with the motorbikes going to deprived districts.
“We want to give the Births and Deaths Registry a new face, a very friendly posture, so that people don’t struggle to get their Birth and Death certificates. We are implementing this programme to target all infant births that occurred in this country.
“We will reach out to the communities as far as we can and ensure that every birth and death that occurs at any level is aptly captured,” Mr. Addo informed.
The Ag. Registrar said his outfit also had the opportunity under the PSRRP program to improve upon their digitization processes, and would ensure that information captured at the local level were fed into the central database.
Mr. Addo said, when this was done, it would help to build an interface with the National Identification Authority (NIA), the Social Security and National Insurance Trust (SSNIT), the Ghana Statistical Service (GSS), and the Ghana Health Service (GHS), which would improve data on residents in Ghana.
“So, together, we want to give a common database, which would be the foundation identity systems in this country; if Ghana gets the Birth and Death registration right, all other identification systems would also benefit,” Mr Addo added.
The PSRRP is a key initiative of the Government of Ghana under the Office of the Senior Minister with a credit facility from the World Bank.
The Project gained effectiveness in 2019 and has been making strides by assisting and providing funding support to sixteen selected entities in the public sector of Ghana to deliver quality services to citizens and the private sector.