Online Passport Application

NEWS COMMENTARY ON THE FULL ROLL OUT OF ONLINE PASSPORT APPLICATION

Online passport acquisition processing was on March 1, rolled out nationwide. This follows successful piloting of the online service at various regional offices of Passport Acquisition Centres, PACs. The initiative which is an enhanced service will streamline and sanitize passports acquisition processes in Ghana.

Following myriad of challenges confronted by passport applicants, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration in December 2016, launched an online Passports Service.

This was a flagship programme by the Ministry, under the leadership of a former sector Minister Hannah Serwaa Tetteh, designed to take away challenges applicants were confronted with daily in a quest to acquire Ghanaian passport.

To apply for an online passport, applicants are to visit passport.mfa.gov.gh, to create an account and go through the other application process. Applicants have available dates which they choose in order to present themselves at a PAC, to finalize the process. The date and a PAC selected is at the discretion and convenience of applicants.

Selection of dates is crucial because there are quotas for every day which has morning and afternoon sessions. A window of opportunity is still opened for applicants to re-book an available day in case of a missed appointment. In view of the fact that appointments are booked online, slot for each of the sessions can be projected and the centre adequately prepared to meet the demand.

The Accra PAC which started the service for instance is able to process a maximum of two hundred and fifty applications a day. After a successful registration applicants are given a date for collection.

The manual processing on the other hand is a walk – in service and has run concurrently with the online system for almost four years. The forms which hitherto were sold at some selected banks has since February 2019, been suspended.

The manual processing required applicants to download forms on the Ministry’s website, complete, make required payment at the banks and return to the nearest PAC for completion. The challenge of walk – in service lies, in the centre not being able to make the necessary projections for a day. There are times when the numbers become overwhelming, resulting in anxiety and frustration among applicants which encourages them to instead contract services of intermediaries otherwise known as “goro boys”.

Some personnel of the service have been in the news for taking advantage of the situation to enrich themselves by fast tracking one’s application. These are some of the inconveniences that the online service seeks to address as it will reduce to a barest minimum activities of these intermediaries.

In a run up to a full role of the online service concerns have been raised about the illiteracy rate of the country. However, the Director of Passport Francis Danti Kotia, maintains going online is appropriate at this time and encourages well meaning Ghanaians to come up with innovative business plans that can resolve the need the online system would bring.

Acknowledging the importance of proximity of passport offices to Ghanaians, he says the service is working round the clock to establish PACs in regions such as Upper East, West, Central and the newly created six regions that do not yet have passport offices . This is to bring respite to residents living in these regions.

As the passport office embarks on continues Service enhancement initiatives, let us as citizens be vigilant and weed out corrupt officers and other intermediaries such as the ‘goro boys’. The service must also pursue educational campaigns that would compel people to initiate the process of acquiring a passport irrespective of intentions to travel or not, since passport is a must have document. This would go a long way to reduce tensions associated with acquiring a passport within a certain time frame which ultimately lures applicants to contract services of middle men.