A week af­ter At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Regi­nald Ar­mour was ad­vised to seek Cab­i­net ap­proval to find a per­ma­nent so­lu­tion to the im­passe be­tween the of­fices of the Reg­is­trar Gen­er­al in To­ba­go and Trinidad, Reg­is­trar Gen­er­al Karen Bridge­wa­ter-Tay­lor says the is­sue arose out of the in­sub­or­di­na­tion of a staff mem­ber.

In a memo is­sued to staff on Mon­day, Bridge­wa­ter-Tay­lor dis­missed me­dia re­ports that the To­ba­go of­fice of the Reg­is­trar Gen­er­al was closed, forc­ing To­bag­o­ni­ans to jour­ney to Trinidad to reg­is­ter births, deaths, land deals and busi­ness­es. She al­so de­nied there were pile-up of bod­ies at a fu­ner­al home on the is­land due to the sit­u­a­tion.

Guardian Me­dia re­port­ed that the im­passe be­tween the two of­fices last­ed some weeks, re­sult­ing in To­bag­o­ni­ans not be­ing able to ac­cess the ser­vices.

Both Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley and AG Ar­mour had com­ment­ed on the is­sue dur­ing that pe­ri­od, with the PM say­ing a fix was need­ed but it was a com­plex mat­ter. AG Ar­mour al­so sought the ad­vice of Michael Quam­i­na SC, who sub­se­quent­ly ad­vised: “Cab­i­net may wish to con­sid­er in­ter­ven­tion, whether by leg­isla­tive amend­ment or fur­ther Cab­i­net Note, to clar­i­fy the ex­ist­ing arrange­ments as re­gards to the Reg­is­trar Gen­er­al’s sub-of­fice in To­ba­go. Bear­ing in mind that the po­si­tion of As­sis­tant Reg­is­trar Gen­er­al To­ba­go has been recog­nised as a dis­trict of­fice with­in the Ju­di­cial and Le­gal Ser­vices Com­mis­sion (JLSC) by the Salaries Re­view Com­mis­sion.”

In her memo to staff, Bridge­wa­ter-Tay­lor said the im­passe stemmed from the work­er dis­obey­ing her di­rect in­struc­tions. She re­vealed that the work­er was asked to re­port to Trinidad for a month to learn and train on the Prop­er­ty Busi­ness Reg­is­tra­tion Sys­tem and the Com­pa­nies Reg­istry On­line Sys­tem. This re­quest came af­ter Bridge­wa­ter-Tay­lor was told the To­ba­go of­fice was hav­ing a dif­fi­cult time us­ing the sys­tem.

How­ev­er, Bridge­wa­ter-Tay­lor said the em­ploy­ee at the To­ba­go sub-of­fice did not com­ply with her in­struc­tions. She said while the work­er did not ex­press any per­son­al chal­lenges, she in­stead in­formed her (Bridge­wa­ter-Tay­lor) that such an in­struc­tion could on­ly come from the Per­ma­nent Sec­re­tary at the Cen­tral Ad­min­is­tra­tive Ser­vices (CAST) To­ba­go. The Reg­is­trar Gen­er­al added that work­er nev­er com­plied with the di­rec­tive to re­port to Trinidad.

Ac­cord­ing to the Min­istry of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al and Le­gal Af­fairs, the Reg­is­trar Gen­er­al’s Of­fice in To­ba­go is a sub-of­fice of the Reg­is­trar Gen­er­al’s De­part­ment. It falls un­der CAST for ad­min­is­tra­tive sup­port and the Min­istry of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al and Le­gal Af­fairs with re­spect to le­gal di­rec­tion.

A me­dia re­lease from CAST on Oc­to­ber 16 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 was then ac­tive­ly work­ing to­wards restor­ing ser­vices to oth­er im­pact­ed ar­eas, in­clud­ing the Land Reg­istry.

In the memo, Bridge­wa­ter-Tay­lor said she ad­vised her co-work­er that she should not have been tak­ing in­struc­tions via CAST, as in ac­cor­dance with the Ju­di­cial and Le­gal Ser­vices Act, her po­si­tion was one that was draft­ed un­der the Reg­is­trar Gen­er­al’s Act, which meant the work­er was sup­posed to re­port to the Reg­is­trar Gen­er­al (Bridge­wa­ter-Tay­lor).

Quam­i­na al­so ad­vised the AG that it was his in­ter­pre­ta­tion that the work­er should re­port to Bridge­wa­ter-Tay­lor, who then re­ports to the AG.

The Reg­is­trar Gen­er­al al­so re­vealed in her memo that con­trary to re­ports that she locked staff out of the sys­tem, cre­at­ing the is­sue, what oc­curred was that a work­er sent from Trinidad to To­ba­go to help out, was locked out of the of­fice on Oc­to­ber 19 by a se­cu­ri­ty of­fi­cer, re­port­ed­ly on the in­struc­tion of a se­nior of­fi­cer there.

“It is alarm­ing that a se­nior of­fi­cer of the Reg­is­trar Gen­er­al De­part­ment (RGD) was hu­mil­i­at­ed and trau­ma­tised in such a way while mere­ly go­ing to per­form her law­ful du­ty pur­suant to in­struc­tion of the Reg­is­trar Gen­er­al. Such an in­ci­dent has nev­er hap­pened be­fore in the his­to­ry of the RGD. As Reg­is­trar Gen­er­al, my con­cern re­mains for the se­cu­ri­ty and in­tegri­ty of the records for which the Reg­is­trar Gen­er­al is sole­ly legal­ly re­spon­si­ble.”

Bridge­wa­ter-Tay­lor said AG Ar­mour is ful­ly aware of all that is hap­pen­ing and “ex­pressed great con­cern.” She added that she is now await­ing his in­struc­tions on the next step for­ward.

She end­ed the memo by re­mind­ing the de­part­ment of their du­ties to up­hold the law, as the RGD is a le­gal de­part­ment charged with record­ing and dis­sem­i­nat­ing vi­tal records of all cit­i­zens while pre­serv­ing and pro­tect­ing them.