Ghana Passport Office gets new, higher volume printers to ease issuance

Efforts to improve the timely delivery of passports to Ghanaians are yielding results as the Passport Office acquires two new printers with capacity to print higher volumes of passports at a time, ghanabusinessnews.com can report.

The official stipulated periods for issuing a passport are a week and two weeks, but some applicants could wait for months to get their passports.

The entrance and premises of the passport issuing agency is constantly crowded from dusk to dawn by citizens seeking to acquire the travel document and the situation has led to and continues to breed situations in which citizens are generally forced to bribe officials and middlemen to acquire passports.

According to ghanabusinessnews.com sources, the two printers, which have the capacity to print more than 100 passports at a time arrived in the country last week and are awaiting clearance from the port. The sources did not however disclose the model or country of origin of the printers.

The printers in use at the moment are said to heat up after printing a handful of passports, causing delays in issuing the documents.

By Emmanuel K. Dogbevi