Recently, there happen to be so much talks around obtaining a Ghanaian passport. Can you believe the passport office in Ghana all of a sudden decided to increase the prices of passport outrageously.
I believe that the whole reason for all the complaints from all citizens was the fact that securing a passport in Ghana today is not easy at all. It’s more about who you know and not about when you applied. This morning, met a classmate who applied for a passport somewhere May 2023 and up till today she hasn’t received it. Funny enough, another of our mates who applied for his passport about a month ago was called to pick up his today. What a world we live in.
There are so many opportunities out there today and I’m surprised there are still people above the age of 17 out there who still don’t have a travelling passport. For me, I learnt my lesson the hard way some years ago. My dad would always tell me to visit the passport office and start the application process because I never know when an opportunity will arise. Being who I am, I would always tell him I will do it when I’m home on vacation. That was my line up until I found myself in hot soup.
So, it happened that I had to travel in about a month and a half time and I needed to secure my visa and all of that. How on earth can I secure a visa when I didn’t even have a passport to show.😂😂 It all happened like a movie because I suffered a lot. I had to travel from school to the house almost every week and at some point I just decided to be at home because even if I went back to school I would be called to come back the next day or two.
Luckily for me, my dad has his connect so we started the whole process but funny enough, I was still using an old birth certificate. I now had to get an updated one. I applied for it and payed extra money for it to be delivered the next day, thanks to my dads connect.😂😂 Can you imagine my gender was male when the certificate came. I complained and the guy told me to send it like that and that if I’m lucky they might overlook it. Unfortunately for me, I’m never lucky.😂 I was told to go and correct the gender and come back. That delayed my appointment for about a week.
After the mistake was rectified, I had my biometrics taken and once again, my dads connect did his part by printing the booklet.😂 In about 48 hours, I had my passport and think took me almost 2 months. Now, I had my passport but my visa appointment was delayed.
I had already given up but my dad had another connect who helped me secure an appointment for a fee of almost $1000. I told my dad to forget about it cos the money was too much but he didn’t care. He still payed and I had my interview and in a week time, my visa was ready.
I was really happy everything worked out well but on the other hand, I had spent a lot of money and gone through so much stress just to get to that point. I’ve learnt my lessons now so I always advise people to make sure they secure a passport as early as they can because in Africa, with everyday that passes prices are rising.
This is my entry for day 24 of the #Aprilinleo prompt. I hope you enjoyed it. To take part you can check it out here
all images belong to me.
