The registrar of births and deaths at the Ministry of Health has clarified that naturalized citizens are not eligible for the new electronic birth certificates, saying they can are only apply for the National Health Insurance Card.
Lamin Fatty made this clarification on Tuesday amidst the ongoing nationwide issuance of electronic birth certificate and National Health Insurance card.
At a presser held at Central Medical Stores, Kotu, Mr. Fatty said the exercise targets all Gambians irrespective of one possessing birth certificate or not.
He equally clarified that all residents including both nationals and non-nationals in the country are eligible for the new National Health Insurance card.
"There are required documents demanded before you can have your cards. First, you need to be born in The Gambia then hold birth certificate,Identity Card, Infants Welfare Card for children particularly those aged 0 to 17 years accompanied by parent's supporting documents. Any of these documents provided alongside parent supporting documents can be granted the new birth certificate and health insurance." he said.
Fatty, however, noted that 'if the aforementioned documents are not available, then an attestation from the Alkalo of your place of birth is allowed. Alkalo should issue an attestation statement accompanied by a district chief approval; in the absence of district chiefs you can have the mayor, or ward councilors. This is because we don't want to water down our national documentation for anyone to claim citizenship." he said.
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He indicated that 'if you are born in The Gambia but your parents are not, this makes you eligible for the new birth certificate indicating that your parents are non-Gambians.'
Fatty revealed that there would be proofreading stage for consumers to confirm their details before approval because there will be no correction in the field.
"We are not doing corrections in the field.If anyone observe any error on their document, you need to wait till the whole exercise is done for correction. Once you click the approval link, the system will not be able to edit any information. The system is set in that way to prevent hackers penetrating our system." he added.
The mass birth registration and Health Insurance registration, he added, is a three-month exercise targeting the entire country.
Fatty also spoke highly of the trained personnel to conduct the exercise, noting that they're trained to make sure they deliver as expected and they have been selected based on competence.
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