The flagship project for the Ministry of Citizenship for 2016 is the complete digitizing of records at the General Registrar Office (GRO), according to Minister Winston Felix.
He informed that this initiative has already started in a small way. “We already have been doing the records from 1987 to this point. I think we were somewhere in the 1990s,” he said.
Felix stressed that the intention is to “capture and digitize all the records we have there and provide such a database that would enable us to retrieve records faster. We will be able to provide birth certificates much faster and we will be able to secure those records for much longer periods and under safer conditions,” he told Stabroek News recently.
He said that a bidding process is now being looked at so that the project can get started.
The office’s website states that its mission is to “maintain and secure National registers and Registration Forms of Birth, Death and Marriages of Guyanese people and of Foreigners occurring in Guyana and to supply members of the public upon request, extracts of entries recorded with minimum of delay.”
The office is located the Guyana Post Office Corporation (GPOC) building and is accessed from the Robb Street entrance.
In an ad last October, the Department of Citizenship and Immigration Services of the Ministry of the Presidency invited expressions of interest for consultancy services for computerisation of the GRO records.
Over the years, numerous persons have complained about the slow delivery of services by the GRO.
