For the upcoming FY, CHASE will focus on constructing, upgrading and equipping infant schools and departments according to ECC standards, creating 17 new classroom spaces and accompanying amenities valued at approximately $216 million.

Madam Speaker, in this our 60th year of independence we are embarking on Project BirthRight, under the NIDS Project. Through the program, the NIDS Project in collaboration with the RGD will develop, implement and promote outreach programmes at the RGD’s branch offices and across various communities for registering needy, undocumented Jamaican nationals. Eligible participants will receive their birth certificate free of cost. Project BirthRight will provide free birth certificates for undocumented Jamaicans with less than J$37,000 household income monthly. We have allocated J$50,000,000 for this project and expect it to benefit over 11,000 undocumented eligible Jamaicans over the course of this year.

There has been the acquisition of a software to manage monies disbursed from the OPM to implementing agencies. This, Madam Speaker, will be rolled out within the 2nd quarter of this fiscal year (2022/2023).

I am pleased to announce that now a minimum of 25% of the Fund is invested in Educational Development and this amounts to approximately J$315M annually.

This financial year, Madam Speaker, will see the CHASE Fund continuing to build out community cultural centers and performing arts facilities and will see to the completion of: St. Catherine High School Performing Arts Center in St Catherine and; Downtown Kingston Centre for the Visual and Performing Arts.

For the 2022-2023 financial year, Madam Speaker, CHASE will continue to provide needed support to the health sector by providing funding for the acquisition of equipment for hospitals and health centers.

JSIF has embarked on the Integrated Community Development Programme (ICDP), which includes the Safe Passages Project. This multi-parish project improves infrastructure on roadways around schools in multiple communities to reduce accidents with children and will benefit 7,859 persons.

The first NIDS enrolment site in Kingston is to be ready by August 2022. An additional five pilot sites in Kingston will also be ready before year end. Continuing on a steady trajectory, and expanding beyond the pilot in Kingston and St. Andrew, an additional eight sites will be ready by early 2023 in Greater Portmore, Mandeville, Old Harbour, Black River, Morant Bay, Ocho Rios, Port Maria and Montego Bay. And of course, all other parish capitals will see an additional eleven enrolment sites installed by Mid 2023.

The National Identification System which is the software to power our card roll out and includes enrolment, vetting, dashboard, card personalization, pre-enrolment portal, card personalization system is 90% completed. We expect it will be completed over the next two months.

Already we have procured 60 purpose-built tablets which will be distributed to our registration officers for utilisation.

This year the bedside registration programme will get a facelift by introducing a new bedside registration app that the NIDS Project is building in collaboration with the RGD. Upon launch of the app, our officers will be able to populate birth certificate information in real time.

Madam Speaker, the Government intends to spend an additional six million dollars over the next two years on the upskilling of the teams at the RGD.

The digitisation process at the RGD will incorporate the services of forty (40) HEART NSTA/HOPE graduates. These graduates will be trained by Fujitsu’s experts and certified and will help form the backbone of our digitisation journey across the Government.

On Friday, May 6, 2022, we announced a US $4 million dollar ($612,000,000.00) contract to digitise over 2 million of the RGD records with funding from the NIDS project in the Office of the Prime Minister. Fujitsu Caribbean (Jamaica) Limited has been contracted and has already started the work to install the necessary infrastructure at the RGD’s head office to facilitate digitising records created from 1930 to the present.

We are now moving to procure a new registration software solution that will link birth, marriage, deed poll, and death records for the first time.