A total of 20,427 applications have been processed by the Births, Deaths and Marriages Office’s Parenthood Assistance Payment (PAP) scheme as of January 31, 2020.
This was highlighted in Parliament by the Attorney-General Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum who said funds to the tune of $20.427 million had been disbursed to these parents.
However, Mr Sayed-Khaiyum said what was interesting was the statistics.
“We, of course, have been monitoring the registrations,” he said.
“If you register your child within two months of the child being born, it is considered to be what you call ‘in-time registration’. If you register the child after the two months, it is late registration, various fees are actually applicable,” he said.
Mr Sayed-Khaiyum said in 2016 when the Ministry of Health recorded 19,180 births, only 19.9 per cent of the children were registered within two months of the child being born.
He said in 2017, out of the 19,646 children born, only 20.1 per cent were registered within the two months.
“We started PAP, in late 2018 and we had 19,736 births and 33.4 per cent were registered within the first two months.”
He said last year, with the birth figures of 17,913, 80 per cent of the children were registered within the first two months of the child being born.
“So obviously the PAP has provided to be an incentive for the parents to register their child, but more importantly also, the feedback we received Mr Speaker, Sir, is that the ability of the mother to be able to sit in her hospital bed and to be able to send the application through the app that is there has proven to be actually very useful.”
