(Trinidad Guardian) Regis-tration of births, which took as much as one year in the past, will now be done within seven working days with the introduction of the electronic birth registration system. On Monday, Legal Affairs Minister Prakash Ramadhar launched the system at the San Fernando General Hospital. He said the system, which would be more efficient, would eradicate the wrong spelling of names and other errors.
Ramdahar said the system would be extended soon to include the registration of deaths and by the end of the year would be available at all public hospitals in T&T. Minister of Tobago Development Vernella Alleyne-Toppin said the archaic system had hurt tourism in Tobago. She said that was due to the delay in processing marriage licences in three days as was promised. Ramadhar said he considered it an injustice for people to have to wait over a year to get their birth certificates.
He said the method of manually filling out these forms, which often resulted in errors, was archaic. “We live in a modern world and Trinidad and Tobago has to come up to speed.” Health Minister Therese Baptiste-Cornelis, who also attended the launch, welcomed the new system, saying in her mother’s family no one had the right name.
