575 birth certificate applicants overcharged to receive a refund of GHC30 each

The Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development has been ordered to refund to some 575 birth certificate applicants in Suhum in the Eastern Region who were overcharged.

The Collection Officer at the Suhum office of the Birth and Death Registry was cited in the 2016 Auditor General’s report as having charged birth certificate applicants 50 cedis each instead of the approved 20 cedis fee, TV3 correspondent Chatherine Frimpongmaa reported.

At the Public Accounts Committee hearing Friday, officials of the Registry said the officer in question has been made to refund the excess but said no punitive action has been taken against him yet.

The Committee thus asked the Ministry of Local Government under which the Birth and Death Registry falls to consequently refund the excess charge to the 500 applicants.

It also recommended to the Ministry to sanction the officer in question, which the Ministry said it will consider.

Acting Registrar of Birth and Death, Kingsley Asare Addo has meanwhile said the Registry have put in place measures to digitize their operations, which will among other things remove some of these issues faced by applicants.

He said the government last year gave them some funds for the automation of their birth registration system and that once that project is over, they “would ensure that at every community level we have a presence there.

“Once your information is captured even at the health centre, it is fed into the system and the information is sent into a central database,” he said.

He said that attached to that module is will be receipt printout option “so whatever you pay, the system will generate a receipt for you and that number will be quoted against your application,” he said.