Arima gets own Registrar General office

“We truly believe that when you decentralise, it is for no other purpose than to bring government services to you our citizens. Let this today mark in Arima a beginning for Legal Affairs in a different paradigm. A different quality of relationship with the people of Arima now begins,” said Acting Prime Minister and Minister of Legal Affairs, Prakash Ramadhar.

Along with registration of births, deaths and marriages, people will have access to civil, companies or land registry services in Arima. This office will be headed by Camille Toussaint, the assistant to the Registrar General.

The previous sub-office in Arima merely served as a depository for applications for births, deaths and marriage certificates. When these applications were received, it would then be sent to the head office in Port-of-Spain for processing. Then the people who applied in Arima would have to wait as much as a month or more to receive their certificates.

The services that were offered in the sub-office were limited to civil records. The Arima sub- office was not able to provide land and company registries for people. This transaction could have only been done in the Port-of-Spain head office.

Within the past two years at the Arima sub-office, printing and issuing of electronic birth and death certificates were introduced at the sub-office. However, people had to pay the fees for those services at the warden’s office a block away from the sub-office.

Now people in the East are able to have the full services of the Port-of-Spain head office, and pay for their fees in the same building.