By Kebba Ansu Manneh
Many Gambians who spoke to this medium over the weekend have expressed their concerns and disapproval over the ongoing new Digital Birth Registration process introduced by the Ministry of Health.
Many of them also pinpoint loopholes in the entire process that is meant to easily surrender Gambian birthday certificates to non-Gambians without adequately vetting their nationality.
However, the Ministry of Health has since informed the Gambians about Digital Birth Registration and National Health Insurance Card Registration begins on 1st August 2022, and expected it to end in October of this years.
It has also informed the Gambians that documents needed to acquire the digital birth certificate will include a birth certificate, national identification card, passport, driver’s license, resident permit, infant welfare card (IWC) – for newborns without IWC, an antenatal card will suffice and Alkalo Attestation, highlighting that applicant without required national documents is required to provide attestation from Akalo to be able to acquire the new national documents.
“As I urge all Gambian citizens to turn up and get the new birth certificate, in the same vein the mass birth certificate registration should not be done in rush/hurry,” Haji Suwareh disclosed.
He added: “This exercise should be an opportunity to sanitize our dirty inflated national documents, therefore, Alkali attestations should not be part of the requirement. ID card and birth certificates should not be enough to give claimants a new birth certificate, further supporting documents should be a requirement to establish the claimants nationally.”
The outspoken politician observed that the Gambia Immigration Department should also be involved as the lead in the process, adding that political party representatives should all be part of it as key stakeholders to witness the process.
“This current process is so cheap and it makes no sense at all, we must break the silence to protect our national documents. We must not allow our national documents to be used by dirty politicians to succeed themselves by illegally issuing our documents to none national and criminals who will then dirty the country’s image elsewhere in the world,” Haji Suwareh disclosed.
He added: “I know a lot of voter card holders who were rejected by the Gambia immigration to have ID cards, and they were promised by Barrow and his people that they will help to get them ID cards.
Matida Jallow, a civil rights activist has also raised eyebrows at the entire process, describing it as a flawed process meant to issue Gambian Birth certificates to non-Gambians without adequately vetting their nationalities.
She called on all well-meaning Gambians and political party leaders to intervene in order to stop the entire registration exercise that only empowers public health officers to attest nationalities of applicants, arguing that the mass registration of birth is prone to be exploited for the benefit of non-Gambians to get our national documents.
“Therefore, it is incumbent upon all political parties to question the whole process in terms of the listed required documents for obtaining the birth certificate.
“How comes the produce of driving license or resident permit which can be issued on spot by any designated official without following the due process to be sufficient for one to be issued a birth certificate?”, Matida Jallow rhetorically asked.
She added: “How comes attestation of Alkalo should be enough for one to be issued the birth certificate, especially since these Alkalos are the embodiment of political interests of the sitting government?”
More so, “how comes a passport, which is now issued by the designated immigration officer to non-Gambians living outside the country, can be sufficient for one to be issued the birth certificate,” she further asked.
She added as per her own reasoning, “If you do not show objection to this process, you would have no legal ground to disallow non-Gambian to be issued voter cards for the elections,” she concluded.
An anonymous Senior Public Health Official described the process as a flaw and a huge waste of money by the state, arguing that the Ministry of Health could have easily utilised its data bank and issued the digital birth certificate without engaging in any mass registration.
He disclosed that new applicants for a birth certificate could easily walk into the nearest health facilities and go through the normal process of acquiring their birth certificates, saying the old process allows applicants to be well vetted with the district and at the regional level before being issued with a birth certificate.
“For me, the most disturbing part of the whole issue is allowing public health officers stationed in registration centers to confirm attestations of applicants. How come public health officers who are entirely new in the system identify who is a Gambian and non-Gambian? I think the whole process is flawed should be stopped immediately,” she disclosed.
She told this reporter that all the documents mentioned as a requirement are insufficient to determine one’s nationality, noting if the process is to be fair and transparent applicants’ documents should be supported by one of their parent’s documents as well as allow Alkalos and political party representatives to be part of the process.
Gibril Jarju, Director of Planning and Information, Ministry of Health was contacted to shed light on the process he told this reporter that he was engaged at the moment, noting that he will provide all documents to the effect on Tuesday.
