Biometric passports put on hold

Page 48: Daily Graphic, February 5, 2010.
Story: Albert K. Salia
THE Passports Office of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration says its plan to begin the issuance of biometric passports to Ghanaians has been put on hold until the heavy backlog of passports applications currently at the office has been cleared.
It has, therefore, set March 23, this year as the new date to begin the sale of new forms for the biometric passports which should have begun yesterday (Wednesday).
The period will also be used to replace all hand written passports being held by Ghanaians abroad with appropriate booklets.
Under the schedule for the introduction of the biometric passports, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration, was to release the new forms from January 25, 2010 while the launch was to take place yesterday, February 3, 2010.
Alhaji Muhammad Mumuni, the sector Minister, however told the Daily Graphic today that the date for the sale of the forms had to be changed to co-incide with the launch date to avoid the situation where applicants would have to wait till the launch.
Already the Controller and Accountant-General’s Department (CAGD) has taken delivery of the application forms and 750,000 biometric passport booklets ready for the launch
Alhaji Mumuni said the postponement of the launch date was also to ensure the maturity of the Legislative Instrument currently before Parliament for the new fees to be charged.
He explained further that it also became obvious that the launching of the biometric passports was going to create problems for the issuing authority since quite a number of applications were still in their possession.
He said until the biometric passports were launched on March 23, 2010, persons who urgently require passports to travel could apply for the present generation of passports.
Reacting to concerns of the quality of the biometric passports, Alhaji Mumuni said, a lot of checks had been done on it and explained that the design was approved by a stakeholders committee made up of representatives from the Ministries of Foreign Affairs, Finance, National Security, Bureau of National Investigations, the police, Ghana Immigration Service and the Controller and Accountant-General’s Department.
He said the committee had since 2006, been meeting on every Wednesday to discuss issues concerning the project.
Alhaji Mumuni said the company printing the biometric passport booklets was not new to the business as it currently prints those of Liberia since 2007.
He said the Attorney-General’s Department had also given the company a clean bill of health after the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) investigated it for a series of allegations.
According to the Minister, the government cannot abrogate the contract because the government had already paid out £5 million pounds of the entire project cost to the company.
He referred the Daily Graphic to an advertisement in the March 3, 2007 edition of the Ghanaian Times which solicited for comments on the award of the contract to the company in line with the award of the contract.
He said it was after no adverse comments were submitted that the government signed the contract.
Alhaji Mumuni said the company had also kept to its timetable and referred the Daily Graphic to a letter written by the company on March 28, 2008, complaining about the delay in the implementation schedule.
Part of the letter read: You may note from the attached implementation schedule that Buck Press have kept to the timetable and are presently at Week 20 - installation, testing and training. However, in not selecting the sites, the ministry is still at Week three (3). It is our hope that the ministry would work seriously to select the passport application sites within the next few days”.
Alhaji Mumuni said the company had since installed the Central Operations Production (COP) centre for the issuance of the passports while the equipment for the six application centres were all ready to be installed.
He said the contract sum also included installation of both hardware and software at the application centres and a five year maintenance, support and spares services.
The biometric passport will incorporate features such as a watermark paper, holographic foil, invisible and visible features and digital photographs such as the Supreme Court, Parliament House and the adinkra symbols and, therefore, make it difficult to forge and prevent multiple acquisition.
Alhaji Mumuni said Ghana’s missions in London, Rome, Berlin and Washington have been identified to also issue the biometric passports until a time that it was extended to more missions.
The Daily Graphic in its December 30, 2009, edition published that new forms for the issuance of biometric passports would be available to Ghanaian applicants from January 25, 2010 when the old forms will be withdrawn.