Passport Office my “biggest headache” – Tetteh

Minister of Foreign Affairs Hanna Tetteh has conceded that shady dealings at the Passport Office continue to be her “biggest headache” since assuming office.

Ghanaians have to go through a lot of hassle to obtain a national passport. People end up paying a quadruple of the official fee to renew or have a fresh passport through unofficial channels. Those who decide to go through the normal procedure spend months waiting and sometimes end up not receiving the passports.

As a result of the breakdown of some of the passport printers, officials at the Passport Office connive with personnel of the Ghana Immigration Service to charge outrageous fees to issue express passports to desperate citizens.

Speaking in a live interview with Radio Gold and Citi FM on Tuesday, Tetteh disclosed that her outfit has “ordered two new passport printers that can print 20 passports at a time” in an effort to clear the backlog.

She said so far the backlog has been reduced to 17,000 from 21,000 passport applications and believes the number will come down in the coming weeks.

“The happenings at the passport office is one of my biggest headaches,” she confessed. “We’re working with the national security to restructure the passport office which will deal with 'Goro Boys'.”

She said plans are far advanced to operate a banking hall-like passport office at the six other passport application centres to reduce the stress people have to go through to obtain passports.

“It will take about a month to clear the backlog. With regards to the new passport application we want to do, that will depend on funds from the Finance Ministry,” the Foreign Minister added.