My express passport renewal experience and 95K FCFA fine

My passport was due to expire but I opted against renewing and travelled out of Ghana. I hoped to return before eventual expiry to renew but matters got out of hand and I was left without a travel document in a foreign country.

Summary: I brought upon myself a passport expiry situation whiles residing in another country. How I got out of the country (Congo Republic) and renewed my expired document is the subject of this piece.

I left Ghana in July 2018 knowing that my passport expired in March 2019, I expected to fly back early in the month ahead of the expiry but that was not to be, that is how I wound up with passport that could not take me past immigration.

In April, I attended the marriage ceremony of a Congolese colleague in the capital Brazzaville, that trip afforded me the opportunity to visit the Ghana consulate and apply for a new passport.

It turns out that the consulate was unable to issue passports and could only help me with a temporal travel document (Laisser-Passer) which could enable me travel home when next I wanted to. I could renew once back home.

An official of the embassy gave me a contact to deal with once I was ready to renew. An immigration officer at the airport when I arrived also advanced a similar offer but I had psychologically turned down both offers – I had a digital plan.

I had once listened to a radio program in Congo, where the Ghana passports boss was assuring of a new regime for applicants. Per his account, the hitherto deliberately disorderly and chaotic process of old had been replaced by an effectively orderly structure – the Passport Application Centers, PAC.

The part to do with expedited applications made it all the more interesting, that one apply for and receive their passports within 10 working days. I had read largely positive PAC reviews on social media and I itched to test the system that meant I’d pay less for the same document than when I first applied for same in 2014.

Instead of walking in to a post office or bank to fetch the forms, all I needed to start off was to pay for the forms via mobilemoney service. I received a code and created an account on the Foreign Ministry website.

The hard part was with filling the well-known four-part form. I was done with that laborious process in two days partly because I needed to contact a guarantor to sign off the application, in my case, an accountant registered with the Institute of Certified Chartered Accountants Ghana.

I selected a processing center, the Accra Digital Center PAC, and showed up for vetting of my documents and capturing of biometric details. The whole exercise lasted less than four hours. Now was the time for a nail biting period of waiting.

I had a flight to catch but I was 11 working days from the date. Was the application going to beat the deadline and save me the cost of rescheduling? Day 10 arrived and I passed by the PAC and was told belatedly that 10 days was the minimum period and only then did I get to know the maximum – 15 days.

I kept taps on my application via the “Status” page on the Ministry’s website. The website became the traditional - middleman or third party – that usually helped facilitate the process.

Eventually the 10th day elapsed without success for me, I was forced to reschedule my flight by a week, which move cost me 95,000 XAF, an equivalent of 700 cedis.

Passport was ready on Day 13 of application and I got a text message to collect it at the designated center. In total, I had paid 250 cedis to the passport office plus other clerical costs that could bring the cost to 300 cedis.

In 2014, I paid 300 cedis to a middleman aside buying a 50 cedis form from the bank. Despite the flight rescheduling cost, I felt good trusting my instincts with the application. I see my episode as an added testimony to the orderliness of passport applications.

And to think that the current one will run for a decade (2019 – 2029) is by far the best decision government must have taken. In a five-year period, I did three round trips between Ghana (Accra) and Congo Republic (Pointe Noire). 

I smell Saudi Arabia as a destination within the validity duration of my new passport insha Allah – the Hajj, is huge on my travel plans. We plan and Allah plans, and HE is the best of planners.

19 Rabi'us Thaanii, 1441 = 16 December, 2019