Director of Passports Yahaya Amantana Mahama has been interdicted, Parliament has been told, as investigations continue into allegations involving Ghanaian passports.
Majority Leader James Agalga said on Friday that Foreign Affairs Minister Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa would brief Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee on the matter. The ministry had not confirmed the interdiction by Friday morning.
The assurance followed a demand from Minority Leader Alexander Afenyo-Markin for the minister to appear before the committee and account for the progress of the inquiry.
“A mere invitation to the Minister will suffice and he’s somebody who is very willing and eager to come to this House and appear before the Committee for Foreign Affairs and apprise them of how far they have gone with the investigation,” Agalga said.
“I’d want to assure this House that whosoever is found culpable of any wrongdoing will not be shelved. So there is no cause for alarm,” he added.
Agalga said the director had been interdicted to allow investigators to carry out their work. He also told MPs that nobody implicated in wrongdoing would be shielded and that anyone found responsible would face the law.
The parliamentary dispute began on Tuesday, November 3, when Damongo MP Samuel Abu Jinapor alleged that diplomatic passports were being sold for between US$10,000 and US$50,000. The figure remains an allegation by the Minority and has not been established by an investigation.
Speaker Alban Bagbin ordered Jinapor to leave the chamber after he declined to withdraw the claim. Minority MPs then left the chamber with him.
Speaking on JoyNews’ PM Express, Agalga said the case about which he had been briefed involved a service passport rather than a diplomatic passport.
“Those allegations, to the best of my knowledge, have nothing to do with diplomatic passports,” he said.
Agalga referred to an officer recruited in 2004 but did not identify that person as Mahama.
However, Akwatia MP Bernard Bediako Baidoo told TV3 that the employee who had been interdicted was recruited in November 2024, only weeks before the current government took office. The two accounts conflict, while Agalga’s statement on Friday did not clarify which applied to the director.
Asaase News has reported that Ambassador Alexander Grant is chairing a five-member committee established on Tuesday, October 13. The committee was expected to submit its findings to the minister by the end of the week, unless that timetable was revised. Agalga did not refer to the committee in Parliament.
A service passport is issued to a public officer travelling on state business, while diplomatic passports are reserved for diplomats and others authorised by the state.
Citi Newsroom, citing unnamed ministry officials, linked Mahama’s interdiction to the Minority’s US$50,000 allegation. Agalga has not described the case in those terms.
The issue is separate from the ministry’s decision in May 2025 to cancel 341 diplomatic passports and 360 service passports that former office-holders had failed to return after a recall. The ministry has not said ordinary passport applications are affected.
No date has been set for Ablakwa’s appearance, although Agalga said an invitation from the committee would be sufficient.
