Hon. Daniel Botwe, Minister for Local Government, Decentralisation, and Rural Development has charged Metropolitan/ Municipal and District Chief Executives (MMDCEs) to live up to their statutory responsibilities within the Local Government Act 2016 (Act 936) and the Land Use and Spatial Planning Act 2016 (Act 925) to help build sustainable and resilient cities within the country.

The Minister was speaking to MMDCEs and Metropolitan/ Municipal and District Coordinating Directors, Heads of Physical and Works Departments of all twenty-nine (29) Assemblies in the Greater Accra Region at a meeting held to discuss spatial planning activities within the Region.

The meeting provided the platform to discuss the bottlenecks in the spatial planning and permitting roles and procedures within the Region with the aim of proposing workable solutions on the way forward.

According to the Minister, this has become necessary due to the perennial flooding and its related matters that hit Accra recently and other places across the country which Cabinet directed that urgent and immediate actions be taken to address the situation nationwide, starting with the Greater Accra.

This, the Minister said is as a result of the challenge of the poor state of urban land-use planning and management; posing as a major contributing factor to the perennial flooding, with reference to the rapid growth of population and increasing urbanization which has placed huge demands on local authorities with respect to the provision of housing, sanitation and other related services.

He urged MMDCEs to ensure adherence to their statutory mandate reflected in the various legislations governing spatial planning and land use to help provide adequate spatial direction for physical development within the various assemblies which forms the fulcrum for development control.

Source: MLGDRD Public Relations Unit

The Management and staff of the Births and Deaths Registry have been commended for automating their operation and services by piloting an online payment portal on Ghana.gov, and also establishing a call centre to respond to public enquiries.

They were also encouraged to work hard to create a safe and friendly environment for the registration of births and deaths in the country.

The commendation came at the launch of the Mobile Mass Registration Exercise and publicizing the need to register births and deaths events at the Registry’s new office located within the National Association of Local Government Authority (NALAG) building in Accra.

Launching the registration exercise, the Minister for Local Government, Decentralisation and Rural Development, Hon. Daniel Botwe stressed the government’s commitment to strengthen the identity management eco-system in the country by ensuring that policies, laws, regulations  and guidelines were available and implemented at all times.

He said the Ministry of Local Government, Decentralisation and Rural Development (MLGDRD), which is responsible for Births and Deaths, spearheaded the enactment of the Registration of the Births and Deaths Act 2020 (Act 1027), passed by Parliament and assented to by H. E. President Akufo-Addo in October 2020. The Act ensures that the Registry’s operations are decentralised and its functions are clearly outlined.

He noted that the revised legal frameworks mandate the Registry to develop a robust and credible registration system which ensures that every birth and death that occurs in the country is registered within a specified time.

He disclosed that birth registration is free from zero to twelve month and similarly, death registration within the first ten days after occurrence is also at no cost.

Source: MLGDRD Public Relations Unit

The Minister for Local Government, Decentralisation and Rural Development, Hon. Daniel Botwe has presented two thousand, four hundred and fifty (2,450) mobile tablets and eight vehicles to the Births and Deaths Registry to facilitate and improve upon the registration of births and deaths across the country.

The mobile tablets and vehicles were from the Ghana Statistical Service (GSS), through the efforts of the Office of the Vice President, Dr. Mahmudu Bawumia, under the Harmonizing and Improving Statistics in West Africa Project (HISWAP) funded by the World Bank, a  project to strengthen the statistical systems in the West African sub-region.

Launching the Mobile Mass Registration campaign, Hon. Daniel Botwe was hopeful that the logistics to the Registry would help improve statistics in both births and deaths fields.

He noted that in 2021, the Registry recorded 80% births and only 17% deaths, outlining that the registration of the later is the greatest constraints in the record system due to the low importance attached to it.

He emphasised that Section 32 (4) of the Registration of the Births and Deaths Act 2020 (1027 ) required that a person who conducts burial shall inspect the death certificate and burial permit before proceeding with the burial, which mandates everyone to comply.

He therefore entreated the media which he described as key stakeholders in publicizing the activities of the Registry in the mobile mass campaign especially at the sub-district level to partner with the Registry to educate and sensitise the public on the issuance of certificates, the verification of registration of births and deaths, search of records of births and deaths as well as the issuance of burial permit.

  Source: MLGDRD Public Relations Unit