CEO of RGD Calls for Innovation in Public Sector

Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Registrar General’s Department (RGD), Dr. Patricia Holness, has called for innovation in the public sector, as a way of ensuring accountability.
“It is very important that the Public Sector innovates. If we don’t innovate, we die. We need to be accountable and in order to be accountable, we need to be innovative,” she said.
Dr. Holness was addressing a luncheon meeting of the Kiwanis Club of downtown Kingston, at the Pegasus Hotel, in New Kingston, on February 2.
“The whole matter of accountability rises to the fore when we try to think of who we are. We are public servants and we are here to serve the public in the most effective and efficient manner. Within an organization, such as the RGD, the Management Institute for National Development (MIND), the National Land Agency and all these other executive agencies, we are required to ensure that our productivity measures are as effective as possible. We can only ensure that we are effective if we measure,” she said.
She told the gathering of Kiwanians and visitors that innovation was not an easy thing. According to the CEO, innovation means changing the way things are done.
“Not all of us like changes,” she said. “But change is a must. If we don’t change, we are not growing.”
She cited some of the changes in the operations of the RGD that are making a positive difference in the way things are done. These changes, she said, include greater use of technology, such as online applications over the internet, voice over internet protocol technology, and online banking.
Other innovations introduced by the RGD in recent times have included a Hotel Interface for Marriage Applications (HIMA) programme, which enables operators of resorts to complete and monitor the processing of marriage applications online from the RGD’s website, via a secure channel, from any location.
The RGD now boasts a 98 per cent satisfaction rate for the services it provides, including the provision of birth and death certificates, marriage certificates, genealogical research, and bedside registration of all infants born in a hospital in Jamaica.