A Forensic audit by the Auditor-General has revealed how Ghana’s U.S. Embassy in Washington extorted $19.3 million from visa and passport applicants.
The audit report detailed that for six years, thousands of visa and passport applicants who used Ghana’s Embassy in Washington filled out forms online, paid the service fees and paid extra money to have their documents mailed back to them.
According to the report, a different system redirected applicants and imposed additional charges.
The report disclosed that the new system generated nearly $19.4 million in what the Auditor-General has now classified as irregular proceeds.
It will be recalled that, back in 2025, there was a temporary closure of Ghana’s Embassy in Washington after .S. authorities and Ghanaian officials were alerted to irregularities.
The information gathered suggests the delays, missing documents, and unclear fee structures at the mission prompted the investigations.
The audit found that the Electronic Consular Information Management System (eCIMS) and AppTrack were altered through website manipulation, external platforms, and additional charges embedded into the application process.
Parts of a news article filed by Pledge Against Corruption stated, “Applicants who accessed the embassy’s official website were redirected to privately controlled platforms where they were required to pay $29.75 per application for the return of their passports or visas.
The audit established that the expected or actual cost of postage averaged $10.10, meaning each applicant paid nearly $20 above the cost of service”.
“These arrangements enabled the collection of dispatch/mailing fees and application support service charges from applicants,” the report states.
The report added that the largest component of the $19.3 million illicit fees charged came from these mailing and dispatch charges.
Pledge Against Corruption article added, “The audit report notes that the embassy discontinued the use of self-addressed return envelopes in 2023, removing any alternative method for applicants to pay for the return delivery of their documents from their end. As a result, every applicant was required to pay the fixed mailing fee regardless of the actual cost incurred.
Data drawn from the embassy’s own systems showed that more than 170,000 visa mailing transactions and thousands of passport dispatches were processed during the period under review.
The audit calculates that applicants paid a total of US$6,945,554.00 in mailing and dispatch fees. After deducting the estimated actual postage cost of US$2,357,986.40, it was found that the excess generated from mailing fees alone amounted to US$4,587,567.60.
In addition to mailing charges, applicants were required to pay application support service fees through the unapproved external platforms to which they were redirected. These fees were set at $67 for passport applications and $76.78 for visa applications. The audit indicates that these services were presented as necessary for completing applications, even though they were not part of officially approved government charges.
These charges formed a system in which applicants paid more than the official cost of consular services. Using records from eCIMS and AppTrack, the audit calculated total transactions of $21,337,446.70 linked to these activities. After accounting for actual costs of approximately $2,357,986.40, the remaining $19.37 million was classified as irregular.
The audit also documents operational failures that occurred alongside these charges. Although applicants had already paid for mailing services, the embassy accumulated a backlog of 12,721 visa and passport applications between June and August 2025.
During that period, the embassy managed to mail only 4,507 applications, while 8,214 applications were either collected through personal pickup or remained undelivered, contributing to delays, complaints and additional administrative burden”.
“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.
To address the situation, the embassy incurred an additional cost of about $45,000 to post letters and clear part of the accumulated backlog. This expenditure occurred even though applicants had already paid for mailing services through the system.
The audit report also exposed that Fred Kwarteng, an Information Technology Officer at the embassy, created and operated external platforms, including TravelGhana.Net and GhanaPV.org, along with associated entities such as Ghana Travel Consult, Secure Data Centre LLC, Travel Global, and MFG Technology.
These platforms were linked to official embassy systems and, in some cases, replicated them. Applicants were redirected to these platforms from the embassy’s official website and required to make payments through them when they were not approved platforms.
“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
“The report also identifies senior officials whose roles coincided with the operation of the system. Joseph Ngminebayihi, who served as Minister (Consular) from 2017 to 2021, oversaw consular operations during the early stages of third-party involvement. His successor, Amidu Mohammed Karande, served from 2021 to 2025 during the continued use of external platforms within official workflows.
The audit further states that Alima Mahama, who served as Ghana’s Ambassador to the United States from 2021 to 2024, approved a contract formalising the outsourcing of dispatch services to entities linked to the system”, the Pledge Against Corruption article added.
Meanwhile, the Auditor General recommended that these monies be retrieved from the officials involved and sanctioned accordingly.
“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 audit report added.
See the summary of the estimated cost of irregularities below:
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