Chairman of the Tobago Business Chamber and attorney Martin George has called on the Government to have services at the Registrar General’s office in Tobago restored by the end of this week.
George, in a GML interview said: “It is really a situation that needs immediate attention and rectification and if it is that there has to be some investigations that lead to charges of misbehaviour in public office, then we say let the chips fall where they may but deal with this expeditiously.”
Reports are that the Tobago Registrar General’s office has been locked out of access to the registrar general’s department computer, system and database.
George said, “It is clear that something is terribly amiss here. It cannot be that someone in the upper hierarchy of 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. This means that simple things such as a birth certificate, a death certificate, these are things you will not be able to get. Registering a deed, you know, getting certified copies of a deed. All of these things are unavailable to Tobagonians and it is certainly a very untenable situation. In fact, quite frankly, one is surprised that the Prime Minister and Attorney General are not appalled at this turn of affairs.”
He noted that there are established procedures and policies within both the Public Service Act and the judicial and legal services regulations for handling these types of situations, which should have been used instead of unilaterally locking out Tobago from crucial services.