The manual acquisition of passports is to be done away with whereby applicants will no longer get passport forms from banks and the post office; rather they would have to go on the Foreign Affairs Ministry website to secure the forms.
From Thursday, February 28, prospective applicants will have to download the passport forms from the ministry’s website and then effect payment through MTN Mobile Money, Vodafone Cash, Visa or MasterCard.
Deputy Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration Minister, Mohammed Habib Tijani explained the move had become necessary to seal leaks in the system, raise revenue to finance projects and fast track the passport acquisition process.
The move to ensure a full migration to an electronic system is also to address the cumbersome processes which have characterized passport applications in Ghana. It started in 2018 and is a collaboration between government and an international company, VFS Global.
Prospective applicants and the general public are advised to take note and be informed that the Passport Application Centres (PACs), will only process applications with evidence of electronic payment of the appropriate processing fee.
Last year, the Ministry commissioned a new Premium Passport Application Center to hasten the passport acquisition process where applicants go through the registration process within 30 minutes at an additional charge of Ghc50.
By Michael Eli Dokosi/goldstreetbusiness.com
