Registrar General's Department and Infotech sign agreement

Accra, Aug. 9, GNA - The management of Registrar General's Department (RGD) and management of Infotech Global Pte Limited have signed a Business Requirements Specifications (BRS) agreement to pave way for the next stage of GeReg system development.

Mrs Jemima Oware, Chief State Attorney and Mr Suresh Agarwal,

Managing Director of Infotech, signed the agreement.

Under the deal Infotech, the technology partner, would develop the GEReg system that would support the new business processes at RGD as part of its administrative reform to streamline operations.

GeReg stands for "Government e-Registration" system which is a proprietary product of Infotech that embodies leading practices in the aforesaid business arenas.

The scope of the project includes Company and Business Registration, Marriage Registration and Estate and Death Gratuity Administration.

The project had already started in April with the partners Infotech and RGD engaged in the past three months in defining the baseline information needed for the system, which were validated and finalised at a workshop between August 1 and 6.

"The signing of the BRS between RGD and Infotech represents a

significant milestone in this project as the BRS provides the baseline to proceed to the next stage of GeReg development," Mr Agarwal, told journalists at the sidelines of the signing ceremony.

He said when completed the project would place Ghana among the best countries with ease of doing business and cut down on time of going through the registration process as potential investors would be able to access information and do all business registration on line.

Besides, Mr Agarwal said, the transparency of the system would inspire investors' confidence and rake in substantial revenue to the State.

He was hopeful that the system could be on stream by April 2011 for government testing of the system.

"Automation would permit clients to do business with ease by the press of the button and this would enable us to effectively service our customers. Once, the system would also be linked to the various revenue agencies it would make it easier to check companies who default in their tax obligations," said Patrick de Souza, Infrastructure Manager GCNet.

The key benefits to RGD include ease of doing business with more efficient business registration processes, improved confidence in Ghanaian businesses as company information would be made readily available through the system and increased revenue with more supported revenue generation services.

Other benefits are strategic management decision making supported by statistical and comparative data and enhanced interactions with investors and or interested parties such as financial institutions.

Being built at the cost of 59 million dollars, the five-year GeGOV Project is an initiative of government with the support of the World Bank as part of the wider eGhana project.

The project is a Public Private Partnership to design, finance, build and operate and transfer an e-Gove application for the Revenue Generating Agencies, and the Registrar General's Department.

The contract for the project was signed between GCnet and Government in December 2009.