Zero tolerance for fraud

Mel Cooke, Sunday Gleaner Writer

By creating an easier but more secure system of access to a 'birth paper' - and all other documents - for the public, Registrar General's Department's (RGD) CEO and Deputy Keeper of Records, Dr Patricia Holness, could have been, figuratively, signing her own 'death paper'.

Heading up to 16 years since she took over the RGD's top post on November 1, 1995, and mere months before leaving office on October 31, Holness talks about resistance to her drive to facilitate the RGD's clients without any recollected fear in her voice - and even a smile.

One such resistance came the night before the system was computerised. "Two burly men" who did not work with the RGD stayed in the Twickenham Park offices and made their opposition to the move very clear. After all, the computerised system would have - and has - eliminated the corruption over accessing RGD documents by which many a thug lived.

"They said you dare not. We have had this system and we have used it and we do not want this agency to be computerised," Holness said.

The men stayed at the office after 6 p.m. and resisted the security officers' attempts to remove them. When the police came after the men left, Holness said she was asked if she was going to make a report. She said no, and it was only then that she was told of the clear and present danger she had been in. "My security saw when the guy pulled the dagger at me. I was probably three feet from him, but I never saw it," Holness recalls.

The potential danger has hit home as well. "I have had police appear at my home (for her own safety) and say you cannot go to work. I have had days and days of threats. I never feared," Holness said. "God has always protected me."

"I have had nine months where a police officer travelled with me anywhere I went. In my estimation, I had no altercation with anyone, I was simply making the system more accessible. They just told me your life isn't safe." Add to that an occasion when she was told that there were two carloads of gunmen waiting for her outside the offices.

It seems that it is not only a matter of fast-tracking a certificate, as Holness said, "remember we testify in cases all over the world".

Then, after the RGD moved from Spanish Town town centre to its present Twickenham Park location, there was the skull. A human skull. Attached to the fence, "with a birth certificate application stuck into the cavity".

There was no name on the document and the police, who were called, removed the skull.

Holness contends that the Apostolic faith, which she has held from nine years old and which served her well at the RGD, led her to the organisation in the first place. "I know it is a calling on my life. When I started out I knew it was going to be difficult. When I got to RGD, I left my previous job to accept a job that was paying me one-third of what I was getting with JPS (Jamaica Public Service) ," she said.

Seconded

Although she accepted the job at that salary, she said her former employers actually added a monthly payment to the RGD salary, so she moved over at her previous pay level. "And each time JPS got an increase, I got it too," says the former St Jago High School student.

In fact, she was seconded from the JPS to take up the post at the RGD, hence, no salary loss.

In true cooperative fashion, Holness assembled a team of senior RGD personnel for The Sunday Gleaner's Open House, often referring to, sometimes deferring to and very rarely differing from a support cast of Kerry-Ann Crossbourne, Michael Johnson, Gregory Gordon, Hazel Cunningham and Kate Bertram.

Holness is also part of other teams. "I have been married for 33 years this year. I am married to Errol Anthony Holness. We have five children, two grandchildren, one on the way. I love my family. They have been very, very supportive. There hasn't been one day, that I can recall, that we don't sit as a family to a meal together and have good times. We talk about our day," she shares.

There was laughter from the work team when The Sunday Gleaner asked if Holness found time to go to church regularly. It turns out that regularly would be an understatement. "I go on a Monday night, I go on a Wednesday night, I go on a Saturday morning, a Sunday night and Sunday morning. I am a speaker all over the world, I do women's conferences, I have been a Sunday school teacher since 17 years old and I am still teaching Sunday school," she said.

"What I am very much committed to, if you are fraudulent, zero tolerance. I believe we owe it to Jamaica - because we are on the inside - to keep the integrity of our records. We owe it to everybody," she said.

Holness has no definite plans for November 1, 2011 - the day after she steps down as RGD head - and the 16th anniversary of the day when she started the job.

"... I am just leaving myself open for the next assignment," she said.