THE Tobago Business Chamber wants the “debacle” involving the Registrar General’s department in Trinidad and the Deputy Registrar General (Tobago) to be resolved by the end of this week.
On Friday, THA Chief Secretary Farley Augustine called on the Prime Minster and Attorney General Reginald Armour, SC, to investigate swiftly why Tobagonians were being prevented from accessing services of the Registrar General’s department.
In a statement from his office, Augustine said he had received numerous complaints from Tobagonians about their inability to access services from the department.
He also said he had commissioned an investigation to determine why Tobagonians were being denied their legitimate right to access the services provided by the office.
Augustine said he was advised that the Deputy Registrar General (Tobago), appointed by the Judicial and Legal Services Commission to the Office of the Prime Minister, Central Administrative Services, Tobago was “arbitrarily locked out” from the online system by a senior public servant from the Registrar General’s department, which falls within the remit of the Attorney General’s office.
He said he was also advised that this “arbitrary action is related to a difference of opinion between the senior public servant at the Registrar General’s department in Trinidad and the Central Administrative Services, Tobago, regarding an administrative protocol, which is totally unrelated to the processing of civil, land and company documents at the Registrar general s office, Tobago.”
[caption id="attachment_1040416" align="alignnone" width="1024"] CALLED FOR AN INVESTIGATION: THA Chief Secretary Farley Augustine -[/caption]
Augustine said the action was tantamount to misbehaviour in public office.
In a WhatsApp video on Saturday, Tobago Business Chamber chairman and attorney Martin George said the matter requires “immediate attention and rectification.
“If it is that there has to be some investigation which leads to charges of misbehaviour in public office, then we say let the chips fall where they may but deal with this expeditiously, and this situation ought to be resolved within the next few days. We look forward to it being resolved fully and completely by the end of next week,” he said.
George said, when one examines the scenario, “It is clear that something is terribly amiss here.
“It cannot be that someone in the upper hierarchy in the Registrar General’s office in Trinidad can take a unilateral decision to lock out all of Tobago from access to the Registrar General’s database and computer systems.”
He added, “This means that simple things such as a birth certificate, death certificate, these are things you will not be able to get, registering a deed, getting certified copies of a deed, all of these things are unavailable to Tobagonians, and it is certainly an untenable situation.
“In fact, one is surprised that the Prime Minister and the Attorney General are not appalled at this turn of affairs because it seems that someone has taken these things on t
