The New Patriotic Party (NPP) has formally requested the United States to suspend diplomatic courtesies for Ghanaian holders of diplomatic and service passports it claims were issued irregularly. In a letter dated 30 October 2026 and signed by the party’s General Secretary, Justin Kodua Frimpong, the NPP urged the U.S. Chargé d’Affaires in Ghana, Rolf Olson, to act on six cases involving officials from the National Disaster Management Organisation (NADMO) and the Fisheries Commission.
The party alleges that the six individuals do not occupy the positions attributed to them in two approval letters issued by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in August 2026. It further claims that two of the positions cited in the letters do not exist. The first letter, dated 6 August, approved service passports for three NADMO officials: Twumasi Francis Kwame, listed as Deputy Director of Climate Change; Shaibu Alhassan Abu, identified as Director of Hydro; and Gyabaah Anthony, listed as Director of Geology. The NPP says the actual holders of those posts are Ebenezer Vandyke, Dr Bertha Kusimi and Bright Atama.
A second letter, dated 7 August, approved passports for Issah Ayisha, Bennor Yussif and Adom Emmanuel Kwabena as officials of the Fisheries Commission. The NPP contends that the position of Deputy Director of Aquaculture Specialist does not exist at the Commission, while the Deputy Director of Information Technology is held by another officer. It also states that the Commission has no position designated as Assistant Finance Manager, as noted in the approval letter.
The party argues that these discrepancies raise questions about the eligibility of the beneficiaries, especially since the Ministry’s correspondence specified that the passports were intended for official use only. “A passport cannot be for official use where its bearer holds no office that calls for official travel,” the NPP said. It added that the approvals, based on the Ministry’s correspondence, “rest on a misdescription of the applicants’ positions, and the passports issued on them are irregular.”
The NPP is asking the U.S. Mission to subject applications involving Ghanaian diplomatic and service passports issued from 7 January 2025 to enhanced verification with the relevant Ghanaian authorities. It wants the process to include confirmation of each passport holder’s official position with the institution said to employ them.
The party has also called on the Ghanaian government to suspend passports found to have been issued to ineligible persons, publish a comprehensive list of diplomatic and service passports issued since 7 January 2025, and commission an independent audit of the issuance process. It wants the audit to be conducted by the Auditor‑General or another body independent of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, with the findings made public. The NPP further demands that passports found to have been issued irregularly be revoked and recovered, and that anyone implicated in wrongdoing be referred for investigation and possible prosecution.
The party said its request was made in the national interest and was not intended to inconvenience officials travelling on legitimate state business. “These matters come against the backdrop of recent incidents that have caused Ghana considerable international embarrassment,” the NPP said, citing drug seizures linked to consignments from Ghana and romance fraud cases prosecuted abroad.
What follows is a monitoring of the U.S. Embassy’s response and any subsequent actions by the Ghanaian authorities. The situation remains under scrutiny as both sides weigh the implications for diplomatic relations and internal governance.
