Ghana embassy in US charged visa and passport applicants $19m in irregular fees – audit

Thousands of people applying for Ghanaian visas and passports in the US were allegedly redirected to private websites and charged fees that were not officially approved, a forensic audit has found.

The Auditor-General says the arrangement generated $19.37m (£14.7m) in irregular proceeds over six years.

Applicants using the Ghanaian embassy in Washington's website were redirected to external platforms where they

were charged for services including passport and visa delivery and application support.

The audit found that applicants paid $29.75 for the return of each passport or visa, although the average cost of postage was about $10.10.

More than 170,000 visa mailing transactions and thousands of passport dispatches were recorded during the period under review.

The Auditor-General says applicants paid nearly $6.95m in mailing and dispatch fees.

After deducting the estimated actual postage cost of $2.36m, the excess amounted to about $4.59m.

But mailing charges were only one part of the system uncovered by the audit.

How the alleged scheme worked

Ghana's consular services are normally administered through official systems including the Electronic Consular Information Management System (eCIMS) and AppTrack.

The platforms are intended to manage applications and ensure that government fees are collected through approved channels.

But the audit found that the embassy's website had been manipulated to redirect applicants to external platforms.

Applicants were then required to make additional payments for services that were not part of the government's approved consular fees.

Passport applicants were charged $67 for application support, while visa applicants were charged $76.78.

The Auditor-General says these services were presented to applicants as necessary for completing their applications.

The audit also found that additional merchant fees were charged through the Square payment platform, despite there being no formal contract authorising its use.

Taken together, transactions linked to the various arrangements amounted to $21.34m.

After accounting for estimated actual costs of about $2.36m, the Auditor-General classified $19.37m as irregular.

Applicants left waiting for passports

The audit found that the financial arrangements were accompanied by significant problems in the delivery of passports and visas.

Between June and August 2025, the embassy had a backlog of 12,721 applications.

Only 4,507 were mailed during that period.

The remaining 8,214 were either collected in person or remained undelivered, according to the report.

This meant some applicants waited months for documents they had already paid to have delivered.

The embassy subsequently spent about $45,000 posting letters and clearing part of the backlog, even though applicants had already paid mailing fees.

The Auditor-General said the situation raised questions about whether the money collected for dispatch services had been used for its intended purpose.

The embassy stopped accepting self-addressed return envelopes in 2023, meaning applicants no longer had an alternative way of arranging the return of their documents.

Staff member linked to external platforms

The audit names Fred Kwarteng, an information technology officer at the embassy, as having created and operated external platforms including TravelGhana.Net and GhanaPV.org.

It says the platforms were associated with entities including Ghana Travel Consult, Secure Data Centre LLC, Travel Global and MFG Technology.

According to the report, applicants were redirected from the embassy's official website to these platforms to make payments.

The audit says some of the websites used official symbols and designs that could give applicants the impression that they were dealing with authorised government services.

It says the redirects were inserted directly into the embassy website's source code, indicating that administrative-level access was required.

The report describes the arrangement as allowing staff-linked entities to handle passport dispatch, visa-processing communications and payments without appropriate authorisation or oversight.

Senior officials named

The audit also examines the roles of senior embassy officials who served during the period.

Joseph Ngminebayihi, who was Minister (Consular) from 2017 to 2021, oversaw consular operations during the early stages of the third-party arrangements.

His successor, Amidu Mohammed Karande, served from 2021 to 2025 while the external platforms continued to be used.

The report also names Alima Mahama, who was Ghana's ambassador to the US from 2021 to 2024.

It says Ms Mahama signed a contract between the embassy and Travel Ghana/Secure Data Centre formalising the outsourcing of passport and visa dispatch services.

The Auditor-General says the arrangement exposed the mission to related-party transactions and highlighted weaknesses in governance and financial controls.

Being named in the audit does not in itself establish criminal liability.

Embassy temporarily closed

The findings follow concerns that led to the temporary closure of Ghana's embassy in Washington in 2025.

The concerns included delays in processing applications, missing documents and complaints about unclear fee structures.

The forensic audit says the irregularities were made possible by weak internal controls and inadequate oversight.

It recommends that the money be recovered from those it identifies as the key actors.

It also recommends sanctions against affected officers under Ghana's Cybersecurity Act, 2020.

The report says the use of manipulated website redirects, parallel digital platforms and compulsory additional payments allowed unauthorised charges to be imposed on applicants.

The findings are likely to raise further questions about oversight of Ghana's diplomatic missions and the handling of payments for government services abroad.

RE