RGD Regional Office Opens in Port Antonio

Residents of Portland are now able to access the services of the Registrar General’s Department (RGD) in the parish, with the opening of its Port Antonio Regional Office today, January 24.
Operations began at 7:30 a.m. and scores of persons made applications for the various services offered by the department.
The office, which is situated at 19 West Street in the town, shares premises with the head office of the Portland Integrated People’s Co-operative Bank.The establishment of this office represents part of the effort by the RGD to decentralise its operations to make its service more accessible to the Jamaican people.
Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the RGD, Dr. Patricia Holness told JIS News that the idea to locate a regional office in Port Antonio has been a part of the Department’s corporate planning for some time.
She said the Port Antonio Regional Office was one of seven locations to which the service has been decentralised, adding that its operation would go a far way in easing the difficulties experienced by persons in the parish, who formerly had to access the service at the head office in Twickenham Park or the Regional Office in St. Ann’s Bay, St. Ann.
Dr. Holness pointed out that a mobile team from the department was also working in a number of primary schools in the parish in order to enable students sitting the GSAT examinations in March, who are without birth certificates, to procure them in time for the examinations.
The CEO said she was pleased at the response by the residents on the opening day, and expressed confidence that the office would serve the people well. Also speaking to JIS News were several members of the public who came to access the services offered by the office. They expressed pleasure that there was now an RGD office in Port Antonio, and noted that it would be fully utilised.