A forensic audit has revealed that Ghana’s Embassy in Washington, D.C., operated an unauthorised system between 2019 and 2025 that redirected visa and passport applicants to private platforms, generating nearly $19.4 million in irregular proceeds.
For six years, applicants unknowingly bypassed official government channels like eCIMS and AppTrack, paying inflated fees for mailing, application support, and online payment processing. Postage fees were marked up by roughly $20 per application, and return envelopes were phased out in 2023 to enforce compulsory mailing charges.
Despite collecting these dispatch fees, the mission accumulated a backlog of over 12,000 applications between June and August 2025, forcing the embassy to spend an extra $45,000 to clear part of the backlog. Investigations revealed that an IT officer, Fred Kwarteng, created unauthorised external websites—such as TravelGhana.Net and GhanaPV.org—that mimicked official portals and were embedded directly into the embassy’s source code.
The audit highlighted supervisory failures and involvement by key leadership, including former Consular Ministers Joseph Ngminebayihi and Amidu Mohammed Karande, as well as former Ambassador Alima Mahama, who formalised a contract outsourcing dispatch services to a related party.
“These arrangements enabled the collection of dispatch/mailing fees and application support service charges from applicants,” the report states.
“The forensic analysis of visa and passport processing activities at the Embassy of Ghana in Washington, D.C., identified irregular financial transactions related to dispatch/mailing charges between 2019 and 2025; application support services between 2021 and 2025; extra merchant fees for online payments between 2020 and 2025; as well as transactions involving Fred Kwarteng & STEFRANN LLC between 2019 and 2020,” the report said.
“This situation suggests that the dispatch fees previously collected from applicants were not utilised for their intended purpose, exposing the Embassy to avoidable financial loss,” the report states.
“The website redirected applicants from the Embassy’s website to pay fees for postage and application support services. Applicants were charged $29.75 for return postage and additional support service fees through the platform,” the report states.
“Her Excellency Alima Mahama served as Ambassador and Head of Mission from 2021 to 2024. As Ambassador and Head of Mission, H.E. Alima Mahama exercised ultimate supervisory and financial authority over the Embassy’s operations. She signed the General Contract for Services between the Embassy and Travel Ghana / Secure Data Centre, thereby formalising the outsourcing of passport and visa dispatch functions to a related party, with unauthorised fees charged to applicants. During her tenure, the Mission faced scrutiny over banking compliance, exposure to related-party transactions, and weaknesses in governance controls,” the report said.
“The redirects were implemented directly within the website’s source code, showing administrative-level access,” the report states.
“These arrangements allowed staff-linked entities to handle passport dispatch, visa processing communications, and payment arrangements without appropriate authorisation or oversight,” the audit states.
“These irregular charges were imposed through the manipulation of the Embassy’s official website, the creation of parallel digital platforms, and the compulsory redirection of applicants,” the report states.
“We recommend recovery of the amount from the Key Actors. Again, the affected officers should be sanctioned in accordance with the Cybersecurity Act, 2020 (Act 1038),” the report added.
By: Rainbowradioonline.com/Ghana