Passport fees, to increase from the current price of Gh¢100 to Gh¢644 ~ Minister Shirley Ayorkor Botchwey

 The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration is advocating for a considerable hike in passport fees, seeking to raise the current cost from GH¢100 to GH¢644 ~ Shirley Ayorkor Botchwey made this announcement, in an interview with Graphic Online.

Mrs. Botchwey emphasized the financial tension on the government, explaining that the production cost of a passport booklet is GH¢400, leaving a deficit of GH¢300 per passport. This deficit, she emphasized, impedes crucial investments in the Passport Office and is no longer sustainable.

“Ghanaians pay just about GH¢100 for a passport, To produce one passport booklet, it costs GH¢400, which means that for every passport that an applicant acquires, the government has to put in GH¢300 and this is not sustainable,”

Addressing the Parliament before the approval of a GH¢1.127 million budget estimate for her ministry, Ayorkor Botchwey urged the honorable house to consider the proposal, currently under review by the Committee on Subsidiary Legislation. She stressed the need for realistic prices, emphasizing that passports primarily cater to those who require them for travel rather than serving as identification cards.

Ayorkor Botchwey informed the Parliament about the impending resolution of the passport backlog, revealing plans to obtain a giant printer to expedite the process.

“On the cost of passports, it is not sustainable, therefore, I will plead with this honorable house to look at the issue for us. It is already before the subsidiary legislation committee, and I’m hoping that Ghanaians will pay realistic prices for passports. At the moment, passports don’t serve as IDs, we have national ID cards. Therefore, those who need passports are those who need them to travel, and I don’t think that they would want us to continue to subsidize it.”

“Liberia charges $50, we charge $8, meaning we have to subsidize every passport. So the money to buy the printers is used to subsidize the passports… And also, we are thinking of upgrading our passport from biometric to chip-embedded. So the chip-embedded version is going to cost more. If we continue charging at $8, we will continue to face the problems that we are having at the passport office… So we have to raise the fees,”

The proposed fee increase aims to ensure the sustainability of passport services and align Ghana with prevailing standards in the West African sub-region.

TAGS

Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration

Shirley Ayorkor Botchwey

Graphic Online

Passport Office Ghana