The Heads of Departments must be held accountable   

Introduction                       

I love the Turks and Caicos Islands and so I don’t like to say anything negative about my country, however, there comes a time when enough is enough.  How long must one wait to get documents from the various departments of the Turks and Caicos Islands Government? It is time these departments get exposed and dealt with. I wonder if any of the objectives for some of the employees include the processing time for application. I don’t think anyone is being held accountable for this type of action and it is because we have accepted the mediocrity services from some of these departments as normal. It is time the Heads of Departments be held accountable for the output from their departments.

Police Records

On October 25^th, 2022, the Premier, Hon Washington was a guest on my show, Financially Speaking. One of the questions asked was about the length of time it takes to get a police record. The Premier said that “It is extremely embarrassing to have to answer this question, it should never be the case.” He further stated that there should be no excuse as to why a police record should not be turn around in with 48 hours.” With that said, everyone wants to know why then it takes forever to get a police record.

In August 2021, the Royal Turks and Caicos Police made an announcement of an online process for police application and that it would take 10 business days to process rather than normal 21 days.

Now on December 14^th, 2022, the Royal Turks and Caicos Police made another announcement that the new timeframe will be within 14 working days. Isn’t this backward from the August 2021 statement. Did the police overpromise and underdeliver? Who is holding the Police accountable? This is unacceptable and should not be tolerated.  The reasons given are not acceptable. They told us in August 2021 it would be 10 business days and now in 2022 they are saying 14 days

Marriage Certificates

I applied for the copy of a marriage certificate from October 2022, and we are now in December, we have yet to get the copies. We called and no one can provide an update on the application. Why should we accept this? Why can’t marriage certificates be available and issued within a week? Is the information lost? Is the Department understaffed? What is the issue?

Birth Certificates

It took more than six weeks to get copies of birth certificates. This was only achieved after countless calls to the relevant authorities. This is unacceptable but no one is being held

accountable for this.

Endorsement cards for infants

I also experienced another situation in which we were trying to obtain an endorsement card for a baby who was born abroad to a work permit holder. It seems like forever trying to get an endorsement card. Why should something of this nature take so long? The ironic thing is that you reported this to the top hoping it would expedite the processing, but it appeared to take even longer.

Recommendations

• Recruit additional staff to assist in the processing of applications.
• Have some staff work in the evenings so that more applications can be processed.
• Hold the staff and the heads of Department accountable.
• People need to be reprimanded and set an example for the rest of the employees.
• Ensure that all documents are scanned and saved on a server so that they can be easily retrieved.
• Outsource some of these functions.

Conclusion

It is alleged that some people can get these documents within 24 hours either because they know someone, or someone is getting paid under the table. In fact, this type of delay leads to corruption.

As we approach 2023, things must get better but the only way this will happen if the individuals who supposed to be doing their jobs are being held accountable.