Bahamas Registry Continues On-Line Access Project

by Robert Lee, Tax-News.com, London

01 June 2005

Allyson Maynard-Gibson, Bahamas' Minister of Financial Services and Investments, announced last week that the deeds and documents section of the Registrar General's Department has been fully automated and will be available to the public online from today.

Said the Minister: "Customers will be able to perform electronic searches of the index of Deeds and Documents from 1993 to the present. If you live in New Providence, you will not have to come down here to the Registrar General's Department to conduct searches. If you live in Ragged Island, you will not have to fly to New Providence to conduct searches. You may do it from your own community."

The Registrar General's Department says that it plans to fully incorporate e-commerce into its services. "If you wish to access information from home, in the same way you would go to any website, you would use your credit card to buy access time," said Ms Gibson. "The biggest benefit is to clearly demonstrate that The Bahamas is a leading international financial centre, serious about e-business in all of its aspects, and fully in the twenty-first century," said Mrs Gibson.

The Minister said that the Central Bank of The Bahamas is working on making real time payment methods available in conjunction with the clearing banks. However, in the meantime, payments would initially have to be made on an account at the Registry.

Mrs Maynard-Gibson expects to increase the Department's already substantial earnings through the new initiatives: "The Registrar General's Department is the third largest revenue earner for government, and we project this year that we will earn almost $30 million dollars, and that is without all of this online. I'm sure we will be able to significantly increase that once we have online facilities."

"By January 1, 2006, all of the services available at the Registrar General's Department will be available electronically and online," said Mrs Maynard-Gibson. The programme for remaining parts of the Registry's automation project are as follows:

• July 30 – Births;
• September 30 – Deaths and Adoptions;
• October 30 – Marriages;
• December 1 – Industrial Properties.

On-line access to the Registry's records costs $10 per hour. The Minister expects to be able to increase this in future as more records are brought on-line, and connectivity increases.

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