By Mildred Siabi-Mensah
Sekondi, Jan. 24, GNA- Mr. Augustine Tawiah, the Western Regional Director of the Births and Deaths Registry has called on relatives of the dead to report to the facility to aid in data management and development planning purposes.
He added that, aside the government needing information on the population for national decision making, registering the deaths offered the deceased family, an opportunity to make claims and receive benefits from insurance, banks, and other state institutions.
Mr. Tawiah was responding to a question on why deaths registration seemed not to be the interest of the public unlike Births Registration in an interview with the Ghana News Agency in Sekondi.
The annual performance on their activities showed that, while positive strides were being made in the registration of births with 101 percentage coverage in 2023, death coverage stood at 37 percent.
The Region’s expected deaths for 2023 was 7,725, however, 2,857 were recorded at the end of December 2023 involving 1589 males and 1268 females.
Meanwhile, a total infant of 47.026 were registered to break the target of 46,402 for the same period under review.
Among the infants were 24,143 girls and 22,883 boys.
Mr. Tawiah noted that as part of strategy to increase the coverage in deaths registration, the registry was in talks with the Ghana Health Service to certify deaths for the registry while, some officers were being stationed at the morgue to also collect such information.
The Regional Director of the Births and Deaths said, the Act 2020, Act 1027 which is the new laws governing their operations was also helping to shape information collection on the births and deaths, for onwards upload on the new electronic system for real time access and use by other stakeholders.
The registry, formerly operated under Act 301 of 1965 under the Ministry of Local Government charged with handling and development of Registration systems in Ghana.
Mr Tawiah noted that the registry was bent on providing accurate, reliable, and timely information of all births and deaths for the socio-economic development of the country while attaining universal births and deaths registration.
The Western Regional Director however expressed concern about the unwarranted change of births date by some individuals saying, “now with the Ghana Card and Biometric data, the system will expose any such individual.”
GNA