Eliz­a­beth Gon­za­les and Jensen La Vende

The Reg­is­trar Gen­er­al’s Of­fice in To­ba­go is back up and run­ning, af­ter staff at the Civ­il Reg­istry re­ceived cre­den­tials al­low­ing them to re­sume ser­vices, in­clud­ing the is­suance of birth, mar­riage and death cer­tifi­cates, yes­ter­day.

A re­lease from the Reg­is­trar Gen­er­al’s Of­fice said fol­low­ing a tem­po­rary dis­rup­tion of ser­vices in To­ba­go, the restora­tion of civ­il reg­istry ser­vices was pri­ori­tised to en­sure that the pub­lic con­tin­ues to have ac­cess to the crit­i­cal ser­vices pro­vid­ed by the unit.

It said the To­ba­go of­fice is now ac­tive­ly work­ing to­wards restor­ing ser­vices to oth­er im­pact­ed ar­eas, in­clud­ing the Land Reg­istry.

The re­lease came af­ter the Reg­is­trar Gen­er­al’s De­part­ment, in a Face­book post, called on the pub­lic not to be mis­led, claim­ing that the reg­is­tra­tion of births and deaths in To­ba­go nev­er stopped and it had been reg­is­ter­ing births and deaths dai­ly since Oc­to­ber 2023.

When Guardian Me­dia called the of­fice, a rep­re­sen­ta­tive ex­plained that it was not the Scar­bor­ough of­fice that was af­fect­ed, but rather the Dis­trict Reg­is­trar’s of­fice at Ba­co­let. This of­fice, lo­cat­ed a cou­ple of me­tres away, is al­so re­spon­si­ble for the reg­is­tra­tion of deaths and births.

Con­tact­ed for a re­sponse, To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine said he was thank­ful that the mat­ter was sort­ed out and ser­vices had re­sumed.

How­ev­er, this did not stop ac­tivist Bar­ring­ton “Skip­py” Thomas from is­su­ing a pre-ac­tion let­ter to Reg­is­trar Gen­er­al Karen Bridge­wa­ter-Tay­lor threat­en­ing ac­tion over what he claimed was an il­le­gal move to block her deputy from ac­cess­ing the on­line por­tal, cre­at­ing a de­lay in is­su­ing birth and death cer­tifi­cates in To­ba­go.

The pre-ac­tion pro­to­col let­ter came hours be­fore the me­dia re­lease from the Reg­is­trar Gen­er­al’s Of­fice an­nounc­ing the re­sump­tion of full ser­vices. It said the cause of the prob­lem was un­con­sti­tu­tion­al and called for the mat­ter to be re­solved on or be­fore Oc­to­ber 23.

“The said de­ci­sion is dis­crim­i­na­to­ry in na­ture and breach­es the con­sti­tu­tion­al rights of To­bag­o­ni­ans to equal­i­ty of treat­ment from a pub­lic au­thor­i­ty in the ex­er­cise of any func­tions pur­suant to Sec­tion 4(d) of the Con­sti­tu­tion,” the let­ter said.

Thomas, who was rep­re­sent­ed by Keron Ramkhal­whan, called on Bridge­wa­ter-Tay­lor to dis­close “all per­ti­nent doc­u­ments, opin­ions, mem­os, records, min­utes and oth­er con­tem­po­ra­ne­ous notes which record the rea­sons, ra­tio­nale and log­ic of your de­ci­sion.”

He fur­ther stat­ed that his in­tend­ed law­suit sought a de­c­la­ra­tion that Bridge­wa­ter-Tay­lor’s de­ci­sion was un­rea­son­able, ir­ra­tional and un­con­sti­tu­tion­al.

Au­gus­tine al­so called for Bridge­wa­ter-Tay­lor to be dis­ci­plined, adding that “it should nev­er hap­pen again.”

Last Fri­day, Au­gus­tine pub­licly called on Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley and At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Regi­nald Amour to in­ter­vene in the mat­ter.

Amour con­firmed there was an is­sue at the Reg­is­trar Gen­er­al’s of­fice, adding he had sought ad­vice from Se­nior Coun­sel Michael Quam­i­na on the is­sue.

Guardian Me­dia con­tact­ed Quam­i­na yes­ter­day and was told that the ad­vice sought by the AG on how to ad­dress the mat­ter will be de­liv­ered with­in the re­quest­ed time­frame.

Row­ley had told Guardian Me­dia last week that a le­gal co­nun­drum was iden­ti­fied and need­ed to be ad­dressed go­ing for­ward. He added that the mat­ter was re­ceiv­ing ur­gent at­ten­tion from the AG and may re­quire the in­ter­ven­tion of the Cab­i­net.