KINGSTON, Jamaica— The Registrar General’s Department (RGD) will launch its premium offerings of same-day and next-day production of certificates on Monday, February 22.

RGD said to access both, individuals are required to have been previously issued with a computer-generated certificate.

Individuals will be able to submit applications for same-day and next-day processing of birth, death and marriage certificates at all RGD locations islandwide.                                                                                                       

Chief Executive Officer at the RGD, Charlton McFarlane, said that when the RGD began moving away from handwritten certificates and started generating them electronically, they were stored in the department’s production database.   

“Because it (certificate) is already in our database, it means that we can eliminate some of the processes of going to the vault for retrieval of records. We can just move almost immediately to our production database, pull that certificate and have it printed. That is why the requirement is fundamental,” he said.

Customers can visit any RGD office and apply for a same-day or next-day certificate, and once they meet the requirement they can pick up the certificate within three hours at the Head Office at Twickenham Park in Spanish Town.                                                                                                                                   

“So, our next-day service is really a service where the customer will have to pick it up at our Head Office, because our printing is centralised. This means a customer who is in Mandeville or Westmoreland, for example, can actually go to the office within their locale and apply for the same-day certificate and if it is that they really need to pick it up, they can actually make their way to the Spanish Town office to pick it up on the same day,” McFarlane explained.                                                         

Individuals interested in the same-day service will be required to pay $7,500, while those wishing to use the next-day service will pay $6,000.

Meanwhile, McFarlane said these premium services came out of an increased demand from customers.                                                                                 

 “What inspired the move is really the daily requests we receive to expedite certificates. So, I would get the request because somebody would have a visa appointment or they may have to go to the passport office. Sometimes persons are just realising that the passport has expired and they really need the birth certificate to process the renewal, but they don’t have a long window. Adding these premium services really came from just listening to the demand of our customers and responding,” he said.

For more details on the RGD and a full list of services offered, persons can visit rgd.gov.jm.