Shirley Ayorkor Botchway, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration has unveiled its fully furnished Premium Passport Application Centre (PAC) in Kumasi. This is to ease the burden of passport acquisition in the Ashanti Region and beyond.
The centre is the second of its kind in the country. The first is at the Accra Digital Centre (ADC).
Commissioning the facility, Mohammed Habibu Tijani, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration, said the objective of the Premium Passport Application Centre is to leverage technology to enhance passport acquisition process.
He said the Akufo-Addo government is determined to extend passport services to the doorstep of Ghanaians in all parts of the country.
“As part of the process to expand the digital space, and to continue to innovate in a fast changing world as well as to address the challenges that confront the manual passport application system, the Ministry has, as at 1st March, 2020, migrated all the PACs to the Online Passport Application System”, said Mr Tijani.
He disclosed that the manual passport application process, therefore, ceased to operate on the same date.
Commitment
He reiterated the government’s commitment to extending passport services to the doorstep of Ghanaians in all parts of the country. He said the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration is in the process of securing office space from the Regional Coordinating Councils in the Upper East, Upper West and Central regions, as well as the six newly created regions, for the establishment of passport application centres in their respective capitals.
The Deputy Minister said the move will help reduce the burden of prospective applicants having to travel to other regions to acquire passports.
He urged the residents of the Ashanti Region and its environs to make good use of the newly established centre, cooperate with the officers and also provide useful feedbacks to the office to for improvement.
Quality services
Mr Tijani expressed the confidence that the officers stationed at the Kumasi Premium PAC will deliver quality service to the public.
He urged the staff to continue to do more in enhancing the security and integrity of the Ghanaian passport, and as much as possible, to prevent its unlawful acquisition.
SOURCE: Daily Statesman
