RGD Office Opens in Savanna-La-Mar

Residents of Westmoreland will no longer need to travel to Spanish Town or Montego Bay to have official documents dealt with by the Registrar General’s Department (RGD), as a fully equipped office was opened on January 26 on Lewis Street in Savanna-la-Mar, the capital.
The West South Western regional office of the RGD, which is expected to serve persons in Westmoreland and Hanover, is the second of three regional offices to be opened in January, as part of the agency’s decentralization effort.
This office is expected to provide all the services now offered by the RGD head and existing regional offices, including the registration of births and deaths, the application of birth, death, and marriage certificates, still birth and adoption certificates, genealogical search, deeds and conveyances as well as a wedding registry.
Deputy Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and Operations Manager of the RGD, Bryan Aikman told JIS News, that recent findings of the RGD’s mobile team, which paid periodic visits to sections of the country, were that three additional regional offices were needed in Port Antonio, Savanna-la-Mar and Santa Cruz.
“We at the RGD therefore, did a rationalization where we looked at the population and distribution and realized that it would be timely, as part of the decentralization process, to introduce these three new regional offices. This is just part of bringing the services to persons who no longer have to travel these great distances,” Mr. Aikman noted.
“These offices have been very successful . in terms of the number of persons who visit them on a daily basis, which run into an average of 26,000. Our efforts therefore, is to spread this number out to the regional offices, thereby drastically reducing the number of persons who travel, and reduce the crowd coming to Spanish Town,” he added. Meanwhile, Regional Manager for the Savanna-la-Mar office, Ricardo Redwood told JIS News that he was happy to be leading the RGD’s team in Westmoreland and was ready and prepared for the challenges ahead.”I am looking forward to any challenges that may come my way. with one aim in view, as our motto suggests, we aim to satisfy the general public. We are here to serve everyone. We are looking forward to a lot of people using our facilities being satisfied and we hope we will be able to do that,” he said.
The first customer at the Savanna-la-Mar office, Carmeta Campbell told JIS News that she welcomed the service, “because it is very convenient to have this in our parish, as travelling to Montego Bay or Kingston is very costly and also time consuming”.
“I do not have enough words to explain how happy and grateful the entire community is; we could not believe that this would happen so early. We are all very happy and hope we will be able to have everything done here and we won’t have to go to Spanish Town to do any interviews,” she said.
Wayne Vacciana, Public Cleansing Officer, told JIS News that “it’s a very welcome idea to have the Registrar General’s Department Office in Savanna-la-Mar, as persons living in the parish would have to journey all the way to Montego Bay and Spanish Town to get official certificates and documents prepared”.
Housewife, Helena Gray said the “employees look to be friendly and I am so glad to be able to process my applications in Savanna-la-Mar, because going to Montego Bay is a journey that you will have to prepare to pay the cost which is high. I am hoping for a very good service”.