Endemic corruption & bribery at Ghanaian passport offices

I want to report the fact that the Passport Application Office in Tema Community 4, as well as other passport offices across the country are coercing citizens into paying bribes by deliberately delaying the process and frustrating citizens.

I have been to the passport office 3 times and have not received a passport even though I was approved on the first visit, a first visit on which I waited five and a half hours outside in the heat, which seems is another punishment for not paying a bribe.

I have been told on the last two occasions that "my passport isn't ready" and then that "it has not been printed" even though the office told me to come pick up the passport on both of these days. On one of the days I waited outside in the heat for an hour just to be told the passport isn't ready.

This behavior is clearly a tactic being used to frustrate the citizen and force them to pay a bribe. I have been waiting to receive my passport for more than two months after being approved, and now I am being told to come back in another month. Quite a long time to print a single document.

I know from speaking to multiple people (even including my Uber driver that heard me complaining on the phone) that the only way to get your passport in a decent amount of time is to pay a bribe. One person told me that after paying 700 Cedis at one of the Accra offices that they received the passport on the same day. Another individual told me that you can get a passport in a few days if you pay 200 Cedis to one of the women running the Tema Community 4 office. Another individual I spoke to paid a 500 Cedi bribe to get their passport in one week.

It seems that this issue hardly requires a whistleblower; it is clear to me from my experience and from just speaking to about 5 or 6 people that it is a well known fact that you must pay a bribe to get these offices to give you your travel documents.

The right to travel is a human right, and every citizen should be able to obtain travel documents by going through the formal process. Forcing people to pay unknown and arbitrary bribes just to obtain travel documents to come and go from their own country is shameful, and it is only impeding the progress of the citizens and the country and is yet another way that the people running the system are literally standing in the way of the progress of their own people.

This same report has also been sent to the journalist Anas Aremeyaw Anas. It would be in your best interest to clean up before he exposes it publicly.

P.S.,
Many Ghanaians do not submit these reports because they believe it is pointless. They believe that complaints do not work because corruption is so endemic and that those who could put a stop to it are either complicit or too apathetic to act. I tend to agree with them, but I hope you prove us wrong and do something about this.

To the Ghana Anti Corruption Commission, the "Report Corruption" form on your website does not even work and returns a "404 Page not Found" error after clicking "Submit".