Foreign Affairs Ministry to stop taking Birth Certificates as requirements for Passports

The Foreign Affairs Ministry says steps are being taken in collaboration with the Interior, Local Government ministries and other bodies, to phase out birth certificate as one of the requirements for acquiring a passport in Ghana.

According to Deputy Foreign Affairs Minister, Mohammad Habibu Tijani, birth certificates have not been valid documents to prove a person’s true identity as a Ghanaian because there have been instances where some persons have presented fake ones.

“Passports, before any applicant is considered for the Ghanaian passport, we have a number of factors that come into play. It is true that birth certificates have been one of the fundamental requirements for getting a Ghanaian passport.

“But I want to also add that it is not only the birth certificate because sometimes we are able to detect that people have the birth certs but they are not even genuine ones,” he told Evans Mensa on Newsnite.

This move is in compliance to a Supreme Court ruling that the birth certificate is not a form of identification because the document does not establish “the identity of the bearer”.

The Ministry however, has indicated that this decision will not affect existing passports.

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Mr Tijani noted that the Foreign Ministry is considering working with the National Identification Authority (NIA) to ensure a credible database system in establishing a Ghanaian’s identity for the passports.

“Hitherto it, we were thinking of working closely with the NIA because if every Ghanaian has an identification, it will be easier to have to credible information about their identities.”

“So that anyone coming to us for passport will not be asking the same questions that the person went through in acquiring the national ID, once we are linked it’s a matter of checking one or two things because every information that is required to give out a passport, we already have it,” he added.

“So after this ruling, we will be awaiting to get instructions from the Ministry of Interior whiles we are increasing our vigilance on questioning applicants,” he said.