Government says it will set up online passport offices in all ten regions of Ghana to ensure that passport acquisition is decentralized and stress free.
According to government this new process will not compromise on the security features of the passports.
This was revealed by Vice President, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, when he paid an unannounced visit to the passport office in Accra where he also interacted with some applicants who had gathered there, some for several hours.
Addressing the media during the visit Dr. Bawumia said “It’s very clear that we need to move from the manual processing to an online processing of passports and we also need to make sure that every region has that capability to do the online processing.
“So that we abandon the manual and move to online and you can then have much quicker delivery of passports across the country. People are suffering too much just to get a passport.”
The Vice president said government has already initiated steps to ensure a successful decentralization of the process indicating that “the Foreign Minister is so much on top of this issue, the directors here are very much thinking about the changes that we want to bring on board and some of these changes are already beginning.
The immediate past government initiated the online passport application system where the entire process has been digitized.
His lamentation however was that only one place has the enhanced facility which is the passport office in Accra. He said “we only have one online processing center in Ghana which was opened in November and that is here [Accra passport Office] but if we can do across all ten regions, we believe that people will have their passports much quicker.
“This is what we’re going to hold them responsible for and also provide the resources needed to allow the extension of these services across the country.”
By Martin Asiedu-Dartey|3news.com|Ghana
Follow @NewsyMartin