Govt will retool Passport Office to enhance efficiency - Veep

By Godwill Arthur-Mensah, GNA

The Vice President, who spoke to the media after the tour of the various units, said in view of what he had witnessed, there was an urgent need to improve the facilities there.

He said there had been many complaints from the public regarding undue delays in processing passport applications.

The visit, Dr Bawumia said, was therefore, aimed at familiarising himself with the challenges to have a better appreciation of the situation.

This is the second time this year that the Vice President has visited a public institution unannounced.

On January 18, he undertook a similar unannounced visit to the Registrar General’s Office to familiarise himself with their operations.

Dr Bawumia expressed concern about the long queues at the Passport Centre, coupled with the long period of waiting, saying,”People have been waiting here since 0200 hours midnight just to submit a form, and this is not good enough. We need to improve the system.”

He called the process of moving from the manual processing of passport to the online system to be expedited, saying, every region must have the capacity to process passport online to ensure quicker delivery of services.

“People are suffering too much just to get a passport,” he stated “But the good news is that the Foreign Minister is very much on top of the issues and the directors here are very much interested in the changes we are bringing, which indeed, have already been started.”

Mr Samuel Ofosu Boateng, a Deputy Director of the Passport Office, who briefed the Vice President on their operations and challenges, acknowledged that the manual processing of passports, often delayed the delivery of service.

He said the Centre started piloting the electronic application in November last year, and it currently processed 150 applicants per day.

He expressed the hope to increase that to 300 by next week, while processing 200 applicants manually per day.

Mr. Boateng, however, explained that online applicants were supposed to enter their data themselves, and afterwards book appointments to go to the Passport Office to give their biometric data.

The Centre, he said, had wanted to phase-out the manual processing of passports by the end of March this year, but per the situation on the ground, it would not be possible because of the high number of people still applying manually.

 He expressed the hope that it would be able to do so in June.

Mr Boateng said the electronic processing of passports would be extended to other regional centres, including Kumasi, Sunyani, Takoradi, Tamale and Ho.

He said when the Centre checked the online registration recently about 2,000 people had booked appointments.

It would, therefore, create more sheds at the Centre to attend to them.

Mr. Boateng said although there were some technical challenges with the online registration, a Committee had been constituted to deal with the difficulties, and also to help in rolling out the online registration in other regions.

Commenting on the long queues at the Centre, he said some applicants preferred to travel to Accra, though their officials had told them to patronise the regional centres.

To address the menace of middle-men, popularly called the ‘‘Goro Boys’’, Mr. Boateng said currently people who visited the Centre were given special tags, while police personnel had been stationed at the entrance to screen visitors and prevent intruders.

The Deputy Director warned that any staff caught dealing with the illegal passport syndicates would be sanctioned, and cited a recent incident where a staff of the Centre was penalised for a similar offence.

GNA

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