GHANA’S WORLD CUP VISA SCANDAL: THE MAHAMA ADMINISTRATION CANNOT HIDE BEHIND ONE SUSPENSION!
The 2026 World Cup visa scandal is not an isolated administrative lapse. It is a systematic betrayal of public trust under President John Dramani Mahama and the NDC government. When approximately US$623,000 is siphoned into murky visa arrangements, when ordinary citizens are fleeced between US$7,000 and US$14,000 per applicant, and when state agencies flood foreign embassies with fraudulent lists of fake media personnel and phantom board members, this crosses the line from mere corruption into an international embarrassment.
Let us be entirely clear. Sacrificing the Director-General of the National Sports Authority, Yaw Ampofo Ankrah, via a convenient suspension is nothing more than a desperate attempt at damage control. The Mahama administration expects Ghanaians to clap for a single scapegoat while the wider machinery of political patronage, collusion, and institutional abuse remains untouched. We reject that cheap political trick outright.
The hard questions demand immediate, unvarnished answers. Who at the Ministry of Sports and Recreation signed off on these arrangements? Who collected the US$623,000, and whose bank accounts did those funds actually enrich? Why did lists submitted to the US and Canadian embassies contain names of individuals who have zero connection to the National Sports Authority or the Ghana Tourism Authority? When Vincent Ekow Assafuah, the Minority Ranking Member on Parliament’s Youth and Sports Committee, reveals that only two out of fifty supposed “media personnel” and a mere fifteen out of 102 NSA names were legitimate employees, the public is no longer looking at paperwork errors. They are looking at state-sponsored racketeering.
The ministry attempts to hide behind technicalities, claiming some arrangements predated their watch. The emails, the October 22, 2025 stakeholder meetings, and the internal memos tell a completely different story. The documentary record exists, and it points directly to systemic rot. Even as figures like Senyo Hosi rightly invoke the constitutional pillars of probity and accountability, this government treats those principles as campaign slogans rather than binding laws.
We in the New Patriotic Party state unequivocally: probity cannot be selective.
The New Patriotic Party demands immediate, uncompromised action:
1. A Fully Independent Criminal Probe: The CID and investigative bodies must widen their net beyond one sacked Director-General to examine every minister, political appointee, and private actor connected to these transactions.
2. Total Accounting for the US$623,000: Trace every single dollar from the initial payment to its final beneficiary. Release the contracts, invoices, and bank statements.
3. Embassy Verification: Independently audit every single name, cover letter, and credential submitted to foreign diplomatic missions to root out every fake board member and ghost official.
4. Zero Political Interference: Let the evidence lead where it must, regardless of party cards or political protection.
Ghana’s passport is not a commodity, our state institutions are not travel agencies for political cronies, and our international reputation is not up for auction. The Mahama-NDC government must open the books, stop the deflection, and face the full wrath of the rule of law.
Ghana belongs to all citizens, not to a syndicate of political opportunists. The truth will out, and accountability will follow.
