RGD’s gross dereliction of duty

IDARE not imagine that service of the kind I experienced recently at the Registrar General’s Department (RGD) of Jamaica is what obtains even on an occasional basis. What has even compounded this sort of situation, too, is that there seemed to be absolutely no channel of communication to register this grossly unsatisfactory service with the management of the RGD.

I recently relocated to the United States of America, and happened to have urgent occasion for the current version of the Jamaican birth certificate, for the one I had in my possession using was decades old. I immediately applied online with the RGD’s official online platform for express service the very day the US government gave me urgent notification to furnish the birth certificate to update my files.

I am aware that the birth certificate express service for which I applied takes as little as seven days to materialise. However, after several days of tracking the progress of the process, I noticed that the status remained unchanged. Only two of the six steps of the process were checked off even a day before the minimum seven days required for delivery of the service. The two checked steps were ‘Application Made’ and ‘Payment Made’ (US$85/J$12,000). ‘Record Located’, ‘Certificate Processing’, ‘Certificate Generated’ and ‘Certificate Dispatched’ were the remaining fields that saw no activity.

So, I sought to enquire through the RGD’s online messaging as to the delay, and I got no response. I also emailed the department through its official email, and still no response. I subsequently called all the RGD’s telephone lines listed, at the expense of a week’s Digicel roaming minutes, and to my utter chagrin, it was to no avail! I even enlisted the assistance of family members back in Jamaica to make contact by phone with the department, which also turned out to be in vain.

All this time these listed numbers just rang out. I had to summon the intervention of the Consumer Affairs

Commission (CAC) before contact was finally established with the RGD, though through unconventional means.

Still after the commission’s investigation of the matter, that revealed from RGD that my record could not be located, weeks passed without any communication from the RGD to either the CAC or myself. It was not until a family member went to the registrar department’s office in person that any tangible results were obtained. On that day he was still being told that the record could not be located. A few minutes later he was then informed of the RGD locating the lost record, and given a commitment that the service would be speedily process thereafter.

NO TANGIBLE PROGRESS

A whole week later, and a service that should have been delivered in maximum 10 days’ time was only fulfilled unbelievably after 35 days!

By human nature, it would be of some consolation to know that you are not alone enduring distressing circumstances, but that there are others who, through personal experience, can identify with you. I emphatically beg to differ on these sentiments, however! I sincerely wish that this occurrence was an isolated one that was exclusively experienced by myself and no one else.

Gross dereliction of duty of this sort, even by an executive agency of government, should never see a recurrence. Not even the courtesy of an explanation or apology was tendered for the RGD’s disgraceful performance.

How then will the Government or the struggling society of Jamaica ever be redeemed at this rate of handling even very simple affairs as this situation? Little wonder that our island is just about the most popular country on earth today but demonstrates no tangible progress that is commensurate with its astronomical popularity.

Whatever inglorious reputation the RGD, as an institution, incurs for horrific performances like these will speak no better to the ineptitude of its management.