The Minister of Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration, Shirley Ayorkor Botchwey, has fumed at the outrageous charges that citizens have to pay to get their passports in the country.
The minister expressed her anger at the situation when she dismissed overstaying officers and agency representatives at various passport offices in the Greater Accra Region.
Shirley Ayorkor Botchwey expressed her shock at how passport processes that should cost at most, GH¢150 for expedited options, have now shot up to as high as GH¢3000.
"Reports that officers, and there are nine or so agencies represented in any passport application centre… these people are involved in illegal activities, and when I say illegal activities, we know just two days ago the report in Daily Guide that the issue of goro people involved in our passport acquisition process has become rife. It is wrong.
"How can GH¢100 Ghana for standard service of passport acquisition and GH¢150 for expedited service be bumped up to 2,000 and 3,000? I hear they don’t even charge GH¢2,000 now; they are charging 3000 and it is wrong.
“But I can say and we all will agree that a goro person is outside the passport office and they need somebody inside to work with, they cannot do it on their own, people are paying 2,000, 3,000 to acquire a passport, why should this be so?” she said.
Shirley Ayorkor Botchwey had made an unannounced visit to the passport office in Accra on Monday, August 14, 2023, when she made the comments.
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Good start by the minister but this is not going to solve the problem of corruption. Two years on, the corrupt practices will come back to such an important office of the state. The answer is to sack the Director who has failed in his/her supervisory role. Next, those involved in corrupt activities must be sacked. Ghana has so many unemployed graduates but we pamper these greedy few. Why? Unless we sack them, the problem of corruption will persist.
The Minister must be applauded for this action, but She must replicate this action in all the passport offices within the regions, and also streamline their operations. This morning, i had an appointment for passport renewal at the Sekondi passport office. Their internal processes in spite of government's effort to rid the place off corruption leaves much to be desired. My appointment was 9:30 am, and i arrived at the office and was logged in by the front desk at 9:17am after having been asked to do a photocopies of my Ghana Card and the front page of my passport; a requirement that was not stated on my appointment slip. Anyway, after being logged in, i awaited together with other applicants, some of whom had been there since 8:30 am until 11:05am when i was first called to the 4th counter to be interviewed. After this, i was called again at 12:12 pm for another interview in counter 1, and finally at 12:50pm i was called to counter 3 for my finger prints and and my photograph to be taken. I thought one of the reasons for introducing the online application is to make the process less stressful and corruption-free, but what is happening there is undermining the goals the government's digitalisation agenda sought to achieve; with an old biometric passport, and a Ghana card as primary documents, it's unacceptable for one to be made to spend all these hours at the passport office for a passport renewal, when the time wasted there could be used productively elsewhere.