Visa scam rocks embassy in US: Staff create fraudulent account - Employee sacked

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has recalled all staff of Ghana’s mission in Washington DC, with immediate effect, over alleged fraudulent activities uncovered in that embassy. 

Some officers of Ghana’s Embassy in the United States of America (USA) were found to have allegedly created a parallel bank account to the state accounts in which they collect visa and other service fees due the embassy.

The Minister of Foreign Affairs, Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa, who disclosed this to the Daily Graphic on Sunday, said a new team of staff of the ministry would be dispatched to take over operations at the embassy.

The minister added that an officer, who was directly found culpable in many of the allegations, had been dismissed.

He explained that the dismissed employee, who was the Head of Information Technology (IT), set up a private company to which he channelled all the embassy’s businesses.

Consequently, Mr Ablakwa said the IT Department, which the dismissed officer headed, had been dissolved.

Forensic audit

The minister told the Daily Graphic that the ministry had requested the Auditor-General’s Department to conduct a forensic audit of the activities of the embassy and determine the extent of losses incurred through the nefarious activities of the staff and their level of involvement.

The ministry uncovered the corrupt activities after the minister set up a committee to audit the entire operations of the country’s mission in Washington DC.

He said the ministry would forward the report of the committee to the Office of the Attorney-General for further action.

New staff

Mr Ablakwa said following reports from the public about suspected fraudulent dealings at the embassy, a delegation from the ministry in Accra engaged the head of mission and other stakeholders in the United States capital, Washington DC.

He said the delegation was assigned to conduct an audit aimed at gaining a clearer understanding of the mission’s current procedures, evaluating alignment with the ministry’s directives, and addressing issues related to compliance, procurement practices, IT infrastructure, and legal and financial considerations.

Mr Ablakwa said the mission reported that it was currently using an electronic platform (eCIMS) to facilitate the processing of online visa applications.

However, after integrating the new platform, there were frequent incidents of applicants being charged twice or multiple times, which resulted in a high volume of refund requests.

“The recurring issues created administrative inefficiencies, placed pressure on consular staff and raised concerns regarding the user experience and the mission’s operational image,” the minister explained.

To address the challenges and stabilise the payment process, the mission transitioned to a platform known as Authorize.net for online transactions and adopted another platform, Clover, for walk-in (in-person) payments.

To recover the costs associated with digital payment processing platforms, the mission introduced a fixed $7 merchant fee for all online applicants.

However, based on the Auditor-General’s recommendation that the fee was too high, a revised fee of $5 was fixed from February this year.

Highlighting the performance at the embassy during COVID-19, he said the mission adopted a fully online mailing system for visa and passport dispatch, managed through a third-party provider, Ghana Travel Consultants (GTC).

Mr Ablakwa said under that arrangement, applicants were offered delivery options, adding that while it was not compulsory, about 99 per cent of applicants utilised the courier service.

However, it was observed that applicants were not given the alternative of submitting their prepaid return mail envelopes, effectively diverting the service offered by the embassy to a private business.

The procurement of GTC also came into question.