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The Kumasi Passport Office has been cited for extortion, bribery and corruption, as some applicants in the Ashanti Region go through hell to acquire passports.

At best, the office has been turned into an arena for unscrupulous deals, amid nepotism and favouritism, as poor applicants have to go through herculean times to acquire passports. Information tricking in from the Ashanti Regional passport office has it that immigration authorities are milking poor applicants, and charge as much as GH¢600 before they process their passports to the headquarters in Accra.

Sharing his ordeal with The Chronicle, an applicant (name withheld) disclosed that he reported at the passport office early on Thursday at 4:00 a.m. as 11th person on the list, after failing to have his turn the previous day.

According to him, the names on the list were over sixty, and before he was aware, those who were placed 30th on the list, and had come to meet him there, were called and attended to, while those who came as early as 4:00 a.m. were ignored and asked to come the following day.

Another lady, who spoke with this paper, revealed that the immigration staff at the passport office told her to cough GH¢600 before she could have a Ghanaian passport. “Goro” boys are equally having a field day, so much that lotto sellers have joined the canker, milking poor applicants, with the connivance of the officials.

Applicants who muster courage to call immigration authorities to order are sometimes sent away, or denied having their photographs taken, which is part of the processing. The Ashanti Regional Director of passport, Nana Osei, debunked the allegations, saying his subordinates do not indulge in such unscrupulous acts.

According to him, there is a protocol list, which covers people like the Regional Minister and other government personnel, adding that staff at the passport office do have relatives, and they cannot allow their mothers and the likes to join the queue. Nana Osei further explained that they target the number of applicants they can work on, so upon reaching their target, they stop, hence people feel they intentionally ignore them, but that is not the case.

On the bad relationship between applicants and his subordinates, the passport boss advised that applicants must sometimes exercise patience when they are unhappy with proceedings. He, however, admitted that there are challenges, and applicants who have issues can come to him directly for redress. Mr. Osei urged applicants to avoid the goro boys, by buying application forms and applying genuinely, as directed by the Foreign Affairs Ministry.