May 29, 2019
Participants at the workshop
The National Civil Registration Authority (NCRA) has on Monday May 27th held a one-day report validation workshop on Civil Registration and Vital Statistic (CRVS) Comprehensive Country Assessment at the District Council Hall in Kenema Northern Sierra Leone.
The process of the CRVS country assessment commenced following the visit of the Team from the United Nation Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) in the country.
The International and National Consultants led a ten-day training workshop for thirty-six participants at Lakka, Freetown. The residential training was carried out for Task Teams nominated by various constituent institutions from the 27th March- 5th April 2019.
Giving an overview of the validation workshop, the Director General of National Civil Registration Authority, Mohamed Mubashir Massaquoi, said the validation workshop is aimed at identifying the gaps, challenges, recommendations, SWOT and strengthening linkages in carrying out effective civil registration and vital statistics in Sierra Leone.
He said the civil registration and vital statistics is a system which registers and issues birth and death certificates, compiles and disseminates information on vital statistics including causes of death, marriages, divorces, adoption and nullity.
He added that civil registration and vital statistics is critical for women and children and it would increase access to services and entitlements in order for women and children to realise their rights to proper health care, education and basic social benefits including housing and social protection.
The NCRA Director General pointed out that Civil Registration and Vital Statistics is also critical to the 2030 development goals across the life course with 15 of the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals, using indicators which require high quality civil registration and vital statistics data.
He stressed that Civil Registration and Vital Statistics also generates important information which is a prerequisite to socio-economic planning and informed decision making and it also enable governments to monitor key demographic and health indicators including infant, maternal and adult mortality, and target resources and interventions by geography and population group.
He maintained that disparities in maternal, newborn and adolescents’ health represent a major barrier to sustained progress towards every woman and child born rights to survive and thrive.
He reiterated that through the compulsory Civil and Public verification updating and registration exercise on the request of the Ministry of Finance, they were able to identify over 9000 suspected ghost workers and have recommended to the Accountant General to permanently delete such names by June 2019.
He disclosed that the National Civil Registration Authority with the approval of government is planning to install biometric attendance machine in all government and government assisted institutions in Sierra Leone in order to track daily attendance of all civil and public servants.
Members of the team, include the following: National Social Security and Insurance Trust (NASSIT), NCRA, National Revenue Authority (NRA) and Statistics Sierra Leone (SSL), Campaign for Good Governance (CGG), Office of National Security (ONS), Society for Democratic Initiative (SDI) Centre for Accountability and Rule of Law (CARL-SL), Ministry of Social Welfare, Children and Gender Affairs (MSWCGA), National Commission for Persons with Disability (NCPD), PLAN, INT. SL, MOHS, WHO, Ministry of Local Governance and Rural Development (MLGRD), Office of the Administrator and Registrar-General (OARG).
However, the validation process will continue to Bo, Port Loko, Makeni and ends in Freetown.