Posted on:
www.dailyguideghana.com
By William Yaw
Owusu
Tuesday, December
13, 2016
The out-going National Democratic Congress (NDC) is said to be
making frantic efforts to award a questionable contract for the production of
new passports before President John Mahama leaves office on January 6, next
year.
A DAILY GUIDE source has hinted that the policy to bring in
chip-embedded passports was supposed to be part of President Mahama’s long term
plans for his second term, but the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is strangely pushing
it through and wants it done before the exit of the NDC government.
Interestingly, Ghana is already operating a biometric passport
system which is a requirement of the International Civil Aviation Organization
(ICAO); and many experts are questioning the rationale behind the production of
the chip-embedded passports and the speed with which the contract is being secured.
Reports say there is currently about 300,000 passport booklets in
stock and that Ghana does not appear to have any problem regarding scarcity of the
all-important travelling document.
“We are in a transitional period and I do not see the rush to sign a
new contract to put a burden on the new government,” a source wondered, adding,
“The country does not also need the chip-embedded passports at the moment since
we are already having a biometric system which meets international standards.”
When reached, Grant Ntrakwa, Director at the Passport Office, said
his office does not award contracts for the production of passport booklets but
rather it is the Ministry of Foreign Affairs that has the mandate to ensure that
the booklets are available.
He confirmed that there was an ongoing tendering process for the
acquisition of the chip-embedded passports, but said his office was not the
institution awarding the contract.
He underscored, “We at the Passport Office are only a service
delivery point. We take instructions from the ministry and we don’t award
contracts for the acquisition of passports.”
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