Government has ordered two new passport printing machines to clear the backlog of thousands of passport booklets stuck at the Passport Office.
The Passport Office has been struggling to print passport booklets to meet the high demands due to a breakdown of the machines.
[contextly_sidebar id=”xMHmUK1ZhQDWkYhLtA9B0PWIZWYHz6Sn”]That situation reportedly caused a stampede at the entrance of the office; applicants who were given dates to come for their passports were disappointed when they were asked to return on another date because passports could not be printed.
The Office had to rely on just two machines to print passport booklets.
But speaking in a joint interview with Citi FM and Radio Gold, the Minister of Foreign Affiars and Regional Intergration, Hanna Tetteh said her outfit had ordered for new machines to resolve the challenge.
She also disclosed that the over 21,000 passport backlog has been reduced to 17,000.
She projected that within a month, the 17,000 passports will be printed for their respective owners.
According to her, a couple of Ghana Missions in countries which have large numbers of Ghanaian nationals have been selected to print passports.
This, she said will reduce the pressures on the centralized office in Accra.
“We’ve picked a couple of our Missions where we have large Ghanaian diasporas…and they are also deploying the same passport printing equipment to those Missions so that the rush is not going to be on the passport office in Accra,” she explained.
The same equipment will be delivered to the various passport application centers in the regions.
Some individuals who are popularly known as goro boys serve as intermediaries between the applicants and the Passport Office to secure passports for their clients.
Commenting on this , the Minister stressed that ‘Goro boys’ are not officials of the Ministry and her outfit has on a number of occasions sacked them off the premises but they over time return.
Ms Tetteh therefore mentioned that she has been working with the National Security Coordinator to devise ways of streamlining the staffing situation at the Passport Office “to have a better organizational structure so that it becomes less of a jungle out there.”
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By:citifmonline.com/Ghana