The Minister for Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration, Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwah, has provided a detailed update on the government’s plan to establish passport offices in the Western North Region and other five regions, as part of its commitment to improve passport services.
He made these declarations during a parliamentary session on Wednesday, June 18, 2025, while responding to a question posed by the Member of Parliament (MP) for Suaman Dadieso Constituency, Frederick Addy, concerning the timeline for setting up passport offices in the remaining six regions, particularly the Western North Region.
The minister reiterated that, in a bid to spread out passport services and promote a balanced access, the ministry will establish passport application centers in the six regions without them, as part of its ongoing efforts to improve passport delivery.
“As part of our efforts to decentralize passport delivery and ensure equitable access to passport services, the ministry plans to establish passport application centers in the six regions that were newly created that do not have passport application centers.
“They are Savannah Region, Bono East Region, Ahafo Region, Oti Region, Western North Region and the North East Region,” he noted.
He disclosed that, the ministry has adopted a phase approach, starting with temporary passport offices in the six regions, due to current funding constraints that prevent the establishment of permanent structures.
“We have adopted this strategy because we do not have the funding now for permanent structures, what we are doing is to have the first phase which is to establish the temporal offices so we are collaborating with the regional coordinating councils to establish the offices including one in Upper East in Bolga; they do not have a passport application center,” he highlighted.
He assured that, the ministry can transition to permanent structures if the Finance Ministry approves funding the 2026 budget, but he pledged to establish passport application centers in all regions by the end of this year.
“In the 2026 budget, we hope to receive favorable approval from the Ministry of Finance so that we can move into permanent structures so that we can have dedicated stand-alone passport application centers but for now, I can make a commitment that, latest by close of this year, passport application centers will be established using our partnership with our regional administrations across 16 regions
“And the Upper East Region which currently does not have a passport application center, which was started but stopped a couple of years ago but we are determined to make sure the people of the Upper East Region and all these new regions do not continue to suffer and be frustrated because of long travels for passports,” he asserted.
