Foreign Affairs Ministry accuses alleged passport syndicate of forging Chief Director’s signature

The Media Relations Officer at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Fred Duhoe, has accused an alleged passport syndicate of forging the signature of the Ministry’s Chief Director and bypassing established procedures to secure service passports for unqualified persons.

The Ministry has so far identified 10 service passports it says were issued without proper authorisation.

On their part, the Minority in Parliament has alleged that about 300 people benefited from the wider arrangement.

The Minority has called for a parliamentary inquiry into the controversy, accusing the Ministry of facilitating the scheme.

However, speaking on Accra-based Metro TV’s Good Morning Ghana programme on Monday, November 9, Mr Duhoe said the alleged scheme was operated by a person outside the Ministry and a junior Foreign Service Officer who later joined the public institution.

He said the alleged external operator had worked with the officer, Alhassan Sumani, before the latter was recruited into the Foreign Service in November 2024.

According to Mr Duhoe, the pair allegedly used forged documents and signatures to send passport requests directly to the Acting Director of Passports, Mahama Yahaya Amantana, without following the required approval process.

“The illegal service passports were issued after documents were forged and established procedures and protocols were bypassed, with the documents sent directly to the Acting Director of Passports by the syndicate,” he said.

Mr Duhoe said the alleged external operator had admitted before the Ministry’s investigative committee that he practised imitating the Chief Director’s signature to facilitate the issuance of the documents.

He added that Mr Sumani had allegedly operated as a middleman, commonly referred to as a “goro boy”, before joining the Foreign Service and continued the arrangement after his recruitment.

The Media Relations Officer said the Acting Director was interdicted because he failed to conduct the necessary checks before approving the passport requests.