Birth registration vital for services

 By ZACHERY PER

ACCESS to government services will be available to registered citizens, Registrar-General Augustus Wagambio said.

He told 49 locals from the remote Karimui district in Chimbu who completed a one-week training course in civil registry and customary land registration last Friday that registration at birth was vital.

“Only registered citizens will have the right to access government services such as education, health, employment, transport, visa, passport, driver’s licence,” Wagambio said.

He said birth registration was a pre-requisite to accessing services as it was a valuable licence for citizens.

He said the civil registry under the Department of Youth, Religion and Community Development was the only state agency mandated to collate personal information of individuals and keep it in the custody of the registrar-general.

Wagambio said the first national civil registrations for births, deaths and marriage was carried out in 1892. 

But the Government failed to realise the importance of registration until 2003 when it launched the programme.

“We are no longer relying on statutory declarations. We are taking on board biometric, unique identification and fingerprint programmes sooner.

“This personal information collected is highly confidential and cannot be released to anybody,” Wagambio said.

He commended Karimui-Nomane district in Chimbu for being the first out of the 89 districts to undertake birth registration in the 621 council wards in the three local level government areas.