Passport application fee to go up to $40.00 (GH¢500) in Ghana? December 28 ,2023.

 

Ordinary Passport applicants pay GHC 100 (US$8) for regular service and GHC 150(US$13) for expedited services respectively.

Ghana's Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration, which issues travel documents via Passport Offices sited around the country, contends that the current application fees are inadequate to cover the cost of procuring, processing, and issuing the travel document.

The Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration, Kwaku Apratwum-Sarpong, has given the strongest indication that his office will be asking for an upward review from US$8(GHC100) to US$40(GHC500) to be able to cover the cost and be at par with West African neighbors Liberia.  

" Our passport happens to be the cheapest in the whole of the West African Sub-region. Ghana passport costs 8 dollars, the next cheapest [which charges] is Liberia 40 dollars. The supplier of the Liberian and Ghanaian passport booklets is the same company. So our passport is heavily subsidized," he said.

He added: " The money that we're supposed to use to buy the computers and the printers to be able to provide quick service delivery is being used to subsidize the passport that the people apply for ."

 Introduction of Chip Embedded Passports

In a related development, the government is to introduce chip-embedded passports in the second quarter of 2024, and gradually phase out the current biometric passport.

The chip-embedded passports are to be linked to national identification. The biometric information on the chip can be used to authenticate the identity of the passport holder.

The Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration, Kwaku Apratwum-Sarpong, revealed the timeliness noted that the planned shift from the current biometric to chip-embedded passports is a key requirement of the International Civil Aviation Organization. It is asking all countries that are on biometrics to upgrade to the chip-embedded passport," Apratwum Sarpong, said.

Security-wise, he indicated that the chip-embedded passports will make it more likely impossible

for non-Ghanaians and fraudsters to acquire the document. 

"Since a passport is a serious document that needs not to be tampered with or abused, moving from biometric to chip-embedded is for our security and to also make life easier and safer for all of us. We are modernized, we are moving toward digitization.  Chip-embedded is an upgrade on digitalization so we have to get there and be one of the leading lights," He added. 

Source: Aviationghana.com