People wait for 30, 40 years and expect birth certificate in a day – Birth and Death Registry boss 

The Registrar of the Birth and Death Registry, Rev Kingsley Addo, has expressed frustrations with people who wait until they are in an urgent need of birth certificates before applying for it.

He said, “people wait till the point they have an emergency and then come running to the registry for a certificate.”

“You wait for 30, 40 years and then expect the registry to grant you a certificate in a day,” he said in response to applicants’ claims about the slow and bureaucratic processes involved in acquiring birth certificates.

The premises of the Birth and Death Registry across the country are often inundated with applicants desperate to acquire birth certificates, to meet the official requirements, but applicants are ‘greeted’ with long queues and bureaucracy.

But Rev Addo in an interview on Citi FM, monitored by theghanareport.com, blamed the congestion and long delays on applicants who failed to adhere to laid down procedures.

Some applicants had complained bitterly about the ‘rot’ at the registry where workers demand bribes to facilitate the processing of the certificates.

Ordinarily, birth certificate processing should take about three days to a week, but applicants who fail to pay their way through could wait for months before getting the document.

Such is the alleged rot that some applicants said, “they found middlemen more reliable and efficient than workers of the registry.”

But others had concerns about the middlemen duping them.

“But these guys [middlemen] sometimes collect the money without delivering,” a frustrated applicant told Citi News’ Caleb Kudah.

An applicant who narrated his ordeal at the registry said that he was asked to pay GH₵200 to facilitate the processes. But a certificate cost GH₵ 80, depending on where one applied at.

“A guy called me and asked me how fast I wanted the certificate…I told him I needed it urgently to do my Ghana card and passport. He asked if I had GH₵200, but he replied in the negative and the middleman finally reduced it to GH₵150.

“He told me to check my WhatsApp frequently…and after 48 hours I received an alert to come for my certificate,” he said.