DALCY LULUA
THE NEWLY appointed Acting Registrar General for Papua New Guinea Civil and Identity Registry (PNGCIR) Mrs. Salome Bogesia has called out health authorities around the country to come forward and work together with PNGCIR to issue birth certificates.
Last month, Port Moresby General Hospital (PMGH) issued 164 birth certificates as the first badge issuance following a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed in August 2024 between PMGH and PNGCIR.
Picture by DALCY LULUA
Three (3) Provincial Health Authorities (PHAs) namely Eastern Highlands Health Authority, Mendi General Hospital and Angau General Hospital in Morobe have come forward to work with PNGCIR to issue birth certificates as well.
Mrs. Bogesia said, “I want to call out to other CEOs in the other hospitals to come on board and support this initiative.
“Let’s build the necessary systems and processes and put that in place so that when new babies are born, we have them registered.”
She further stressed that National Identification Card (NID) is a special project and will come a time it will phase out.
“Registrations are the core functions of civil and identity registry. The NID project, is a special case projects that’s just targeting the adult population of the country and will phase out one day. But our core function remains, and that is birth registration.
Picture by DALCY LULUA
“The birth registration we are doing now is building an ecosystem that will continue to sustain our databases going into the future when the NID project phases out, ” said the Acting Registrar General.
She further stressed that before independence, there were hospitals facilitating registration of new beds to the nearest Civil Registry Office. After independence, that process has ceased to operate and we are revitalizing this process now, with the support of UNICEF.
