We deserve humane conditions

You may choose to look the other way, but you can never say again that you did not know. William Wilberforce.

The Trades Union Congress last week expressed justified anger against the Italian who chained a Ghanaian employee at work, demanding his prosecution for undermining the dignity and self-esteem of the Ghanaian.

When foreign embassies treat Ghanaian visa applicants shabbily under inhospitable and inhumane conditions, we complain and demand better treatment. We fight to maintain our dignity because the 1992 Constitution guarantees the inviolability of the dignity of the Ghanaian.

Last two weeks I went to the passport office to renew my passport which is due to expire next June. I was introduced to the place by a retired diplomat. The senior people at the place received me with decorum and open arms. My document was approved at the Ridge Office and I was directed to the Tema Station Office, former Ministry of Foreign Affairs, for my document to be scanned to retrieve my data which was stored when I first went for a biometric passport.

What I saw when I entered the place baffled me. I saw throngs of people disorderly arranged, sitting or standing under temporary structures to be attended to. When I got to where the photographs are taken, I was shocked beyond measure .The place was so overcrowded but I managed to enter the place where my forms were to be taken and scanned.

I was initially informed that it takes a long while for data to be transmitted through the system. A mate of my daughter who did her national service with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs was processing her passport and confirmed that for more than a week, her data had not come through.

I wondered how a centralised system could be that flawed. If the system was networked, then it does not matter where the data is entered as it will pass through the system efficiently. I confidently handed over my forms to a gentleman who took them inside to be scanned. But that was when my frustration climaxed.

The gentleman came and sat down to attend to other applicants. After a while, I beckoned him to tell me something, since I did not understand the process. He initially ignored me but I went to him the second time, he exploded, shouting, “Who do you think you are to be worrying me?” He asked me if he had been kind to take my forms inside, why could I not have patience. I told him that I did not know their process and that he was a public servant and needed to be civil, but that annoyed him the more.

When a bystander who appeared to know me asked casually whether he knew the person he was dealing with, he exploded and said he would deal with me, prompting me to react to his empty outbursts and telling him in the face that he was an idiot to be insulting me in that manner without any basis. He raved and ranted but I was prevailed upon to end it.

I left and returned the next day in the company of my retired diplomat friend and that same man was then civil towards me, whereupon I told my friend what he did the previous day. He offered some explanation and apology, but I felt I needed to move on.

I have since acquired the passport but I feel obliged to Ghanaian passport applicants and the staff of the Passport Office to state that the inhospitable conditions under which they operate must be brought into the public domain. Definitely, there may be a few individuals at the passport office who would be benefitting from the chaotic situation. However, the majority of the staff, just like applicants, are not comfortable with the existing inhuman conditions. They said so plainly and loudly when some of them asked me about what I would write from what I observed and experienced.

I am writing this not because I want to expose anybody, apart from the gentleman who acted unprofessionally towards me, but to stress that if the other regional passport offices have similar environments of inhospitable conditions of the sordid state which has been borne stoically by applicants at the Accra office, then we are breaching Article 15 (1) that ‘’the dignity of all persons shall be inviolable”.

Having gone through the process, I cannot pretend I have not seen what staff of the passport office and applicants go through. If it means charging economic fees to offer quality humane service, let it be done. The current situation is an affront to the dignity of the Ghanaian passport applicant. The next time our people are mistreated at a foreign embassy, we may be stopped from passing judgement.