RGD Offering All Services

The Registrar General’s Department (RGD) is offering all services at its locations across the island during the adjusted operating hours of 9:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m.

Some services were restricted as part of measures to contain the risk of transmission of the coronavirus (COVID-19).

Speaking in an interview with JIS News, Chief Executive Officer at the RGD, Charlton McFarlane, said that some members of staff are still working from home, while the offices are being retrofitted in keeping with the COVID-19 health and safety guidelines.

“We are using the first three weeks of June to properly retrofit and put in place all the necessary requirements to ensure that when our full staff complement comes in they are as safe as possible,” he noted.

He said that all members of staff should return to office by June 22 and at that time the RGD will revert to its regular 6:30 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. operating hours at head office in Twickenham Park, St. Catherine, and 7:30 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. for all other branches islandwide.

Meanwhile, Mr. McFarlane informed that the RGD Mobile Unit, which is undergoing repairs, should be ready to roll out in July and August.

“These are the months right before school reopens when the demand for our services, in particular birth certificates, spike,” he noted.

“So, having the mobile unit ready and operational in July will help us to provide additional services and to go out and meet our customers in their own communities,” he added.

The mobile unit, which was retrofitted to function as an office, provides persons with the opportunity to apply for any service that can be done in its branches.

Mr. McFarlane said that as COVID-19 restrictions are being lifted, the RGD has seen an increase in requests for its mobile service.

“Every so often, the RGD is invited to participate in community fairs where we make our services available to persons who are otherwise unable to visit an RGD location to apply for certificates. What we have seen is that with the gradual relaxation of the restrictions and reopening of the various sectors in the economy, we have been getting an increase in the number of invitations for outreach activities.” he noted.

The RGD is an executive agency and Jamaica’s sole repository of birth, death, marriage and foetal death records.

It is the only entity in Jamaica responsible for producing certified copies of birth, death and marriage records upon request, among other activities.