Passport seekers must be honest - Owusu-Poku

The Out-going Director of Passports, Mr. Ernest Owusu-Poku, has attributed the delay in issuing passports to applicants either providing false information or submitting forms through wrong channels.

Speaking in an interview with the Ghana News Agency on Tuesday, he said, "I will not endorse a form, which has false and unfounded information, much more issue the owner of that form with a passport."

Mr. Owusu-Poku pointed to several application forms on his desk saying, "some of these forms for instance have non-existent telephone numbers supposed to belong to witnesses of the applicants."

He said some applicants also provide names of supposed relatives who are usually never traced in case of eventualities.

"Our experience with this sort of problem is one of the reasons I personally take my time to scrutinise the applications to ensure that passport seekers do not outwit us," he said.

"If one submits one's forms and there are no such problems I do not see why the issuing of such a passport should take more than the mandatory one month."

Mr. Owusu-Poku, now the acting Inspector General of Police (IGP), called on passport seekers to disabuse their minds of the notion that paying huge sums to self-styled passports agents is a guarantee for speedy acquisition of passports.

"I must point out that I personally would not endorse a form to be treated urgently without a cover note from an appropriate source explaining why that particular case should be treated special," he said.

A number of passport seekers at the Accra regional office of Ghana Immigration

Service (GIS) told the GNA that they submitted their forms almost a year ago with all the relevant information but have not yet received their passports.

A university student who pleaded anonymity said: "I submitted my form in August last year, now they are telling me it is lost so I must get a new one."

He said he just bought and submitted a new one, and for now "I do not want to be victimised so I am keeping calm, but I will deal with them after I have received my passport."

Mr. Owusu-Poku said processing a passport is cumbersome as it involves issues of national security, adding, "it is for this reason that we treat it with the seriousness it deserves."