The Daily Post newspaper intelligence has uncovered a passport syndicate at the Passport Office in Accra which has not only fleeced millions of cedis from prospective applicants but also disrupted the lives of many.
Ironically, the syndicate includes three senor Directors at the Passport Office, namely Ms. Afia Benneh, Director of Passports and her two deputies, Phillip Acquah and Eric Boateng. Investigations have revealed that these senior officials have for sometime now created artificial shortages of passports with the excuse that there is shortage of passport booklets and laying the blame at the doors of the Mills government.
Then using one Nana Akwasi, they process for those who are desperate for one at an astronomical fee of GH�200 instead of the official fee of Gh�10. As a result of the artificial shortage created by this syndicate, the passport office is usually overcrowded with people going to and fro, desperate to acquire passports.
Daily Post intelligence has further established that with the dubious activities of the syndicate, people who have applied for passports since January when the Mills Administration took over the reins of government have still not been issued with one. Some of the applicants who needed the passports to enable them go to school abroad have seen their dreams of acquiring further education outside Ghana crushed as a result of their inability to acquire a passport to travel. Investigations also uncovered the selling of Ghanaian passports to foreigners by the syndicate at very exorbitant prices and raking in millions of cedis as a result.
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