Public Sector Reforms: Passport Office has processed, printed 700,000 passports since August 2023 – Osafo-Maafo

Senior Presidential Advisor, Mr. Yaw Osafo-Maafo has revealed that services provided by the Passport Office have tremendously improved since the implementation of the Public Sector Reform Project started.

Addressing a press briefing at the Ministry of Information on Wednesday, June 19, Mr. Osafo-Maafo said the Passport Office has been able to process and print about 700,000 passports since August 2023.

“The passport application ecosystem has improved significantly. Since August 2023, Passport Office has been able to process and print about 700,000 passport applications including 100,000 passport application backlogs as against the annual average target of 500,000 printed booklets,” Mr. Yaw Osafo-Maafo shared.

The Government of Ghana (GoG) through the Office of the Senior Presidential Advisor (OSPA) and the Public Sector Reform Secretariat (PSRS), has been implementing the first-ever Public Sector Reform for Results Project (PSRRP) from 2019.

The World Bank provided the PSRRP with a credit facility of US$24 million to cover thirteen (13) Ministries, Departments, and Agencies.

The Project Development Objective was to improve efficiency and accountability in delivering selected services by Selected Entities.

Through the implementation of the project which will come to an end on Thursday, June 20, capturing of biodata has improved significantly at the Passport Office.

This comes after the setting up of new biodata-capturing booths, reducing the waiting period drastically across the country.

Not only the Passport Office but services provided by the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Authority (DVLA), Births and Deaths Registry (BDR), and the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ) have improved massively.

Other institutions that benefited from the implementation of the Public Sector Reforms funded by World Bank include Public Services Commission (PSC), Office of the Head of Civil Service (OHCS), Monitoring and Evaluation Secretariat (MES), National Information Technology Agency (NITA), Public Sector Reform Secretariat (PSRS), Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration (MFARI), Ministry of Local Government, Decentralisation and Rural Development (MLGDRD), Ministry of Environment, Science, Technology and Innovation (MESTI), as well as Ministry of Transport (MoT).