More than 20,000 people in Fiji do not have birth certificates.
This was revealed by Attorney General and Minister for Economy Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum today in a session with the parliamentarians on the National Budget.
He says this was discovered when his team had made a sweep throughout Fiji to find out how many people did not have a birth certificate.
He had revealed this while explaining the allocation of $1,000 for newborn babies from 1st January 2019.
He says one of the requirements is that the baby is registered in the Births, Deaths and Marriages Registry.
He says one of the problems they have encountered is that when school starts, there are long queues outside the Births, Deaths and Marriages Registry because most of the parents register their child only when the child is about to go to school.
Sayed-Khaiyum says this is one way of saving money by putting the condition where they have to register their baby and get a birth certificate before the $1,000 will be given.
He says the account will be under the child’s name and the mother will be the signatory of the account.
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