Ghana Birth Cert. Wahala

In Ghana, before you are given any identification document you will need to provide a copy of your birth certificate for verification before you are given such documents, especially passport. You will have to provide a biometric birth certificate before your passport is processed. Even if you have an old birth certificate your passport will still not be processed until a biometric birth certificate is provided.

Here lies the case that acquiring a biometric birth certificate has become a very frustrating and stressful activity in our country. People go to apply for a birth certificate; they are given time frame to return for their biometric certificates. You will get there and the officials are giving you all sort of stories and excuses. They can give you different time frames on about five occassions and you will still not receive your biometric birth certificate.

The problem here is due to the fact that there are so many officials doing the same thing. Processes of getting a biometric birth cert. Is filling of forms with your voters ID card when the applicant is over 12 months old. The information is typed into the computer and the processes begin. One person can endorse and sign the birth cert after printing, but here lies the case where we have an official who signs the birth cert and the other endorses it. This takes a lot of time because the officials just delay the processes because if they don’t do what is needed the applicant never receives their birth cert. Another problem is also the fact that the birth certificate officials happens to be 98% Muslims. Whenever it is time for them to go and pray, they leave the work not completed and lock the offices. Almost all of them leaves the office and there will be no one working if an office, this delays people of getting their birth cert. And also since we do not have replacement, when an official gets sick, no one takes over their work until they return from their sick birth. This problem also delays people of acquiring their birth certificate.

The final problem is that there are too many non-certified officials that takes peoples information with the motives of getting them a birth certificate. These unauthorised officials also take huge amount of money from applicants for an amount of GH₵50.00 for applicant with old birth cert and GH₵80 for applicant without a birth cert at all. Express is charged from GH₵150.00 to GH₵200.00 to get your biometric birth cert within two to three days regardless of region where you were born. This means that they pay the officials at the central birth certificate registry an amount of money to get the express than.

An applicant who is registering for a new birth certificate is supposed to get his/her biometric birth cert within 15 working days if the applicant was born in Accra additional working days is added to applicants that are born in Accra; those who are born in Northern region will get their biometric birth cert in a month or one month two weeks if the applicant is applying in Accra. Also if the applicant has an old birth cert and is applying for the biometric one, they get it within 10 working days and the same procedure is applied for applicants in other regions. This problem of acquiring birth cert has caused many people to change their place of birth to that of Accra since they wish to receive their birth cert on time and fast.

If this will continue in Ghana, we will never have genuine information about citizens living in Ghana and also development will slow down since corruption is still on the rise. Government should make sure that those unauthorised officials should be asked to stop work or they will be registered under the local government and then they give them a stipulated amount of money to charge the citizens of this country. And also the citizens needs to be given information on where to apply for a birth certificate when the need arises and the amount to pay. More information should also be given out so that citizens are not deceived. The number of Muslims in an office should be reduced because even these Muslims also take other Muslims application and process it for them even if they came late. Muslims application are prioritized than other tribal groups. Evidence can be seen in almost all cases that are printed out every day at the central registry and few other regional applicants will have their birth cert appearing.

REPORT BY:

JESUS LUTHER KING

FOUNDER AND CEO

TRANSFORM AFRIKA INITIATIVE (TRAIT)

CONTACT: 0241215120/ 0232062617

EMAIL: bkagyeman17@yahoo.com

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