Dear all
I just wanted to share my boyfriend and I’s experience re extending our tourist visas in Ghana.
We bought our visa at the Ghana High Commission in the UK. It was sold under the guise of being a ‘three month visa’. From what I remember the choice was either that or a six month multiple entry (which was a lot more expensive). As we were due to stay in Ghana for 3 months and 7 days we asked what we should do and were told to apply for a visa extension for the last week once we arrived.
Two weeks before the three months was due to expire we went to the Ghana Immigration Service to apply for the extension (despite only being 7 days we expected to have to pay a full month). We were then informed that we needed to pay for two months as our ‘three month visa’ was actually a ‘two month visa’. They showed us that when we had entered the country our passports were only stamped with a 60 day permit. This was the first we had heard although we are now hearing similar stories. It was not pointed out to us at the High Commission in London, nor at the airport, and the stamp is far from clear in my passport and you can’t even see the 60 days in my boyfriends – you would never notice.
So I would advise anyone travelling to Ghana on a three month tourist visa who is planning to stay between two and three months to be aware of this. If we had left during this time we would have gone to the airport and been at the mercy of the officials there who would charge for the extension and most likely the penalty fare for overstaying – (at the very least!). A nasty surprise.
But really I would want to warn anyone who needs to have any sort of interaction with the GIS to allow plenty of time and arm yourself with a lot of patience, even for Ghana style bureaucracy. Although it was accepted that we did not know we had overstayed we were charged a penalty fare. We then disputed this and had to jump through many very slow and painful hoops to appeal to the Director. Our appeal was eventually accepted. We were then told by the Head of the Immigration Office we didn’t even need the extra month extension as there is a ‘seven day grace period’ so changed our application however it then transpired that this was absolute rubbish so we had to change it back. And due to their refusal to process the extension until the penalty matter was resolved the date they eventually told us to pick up our passports was two weeks after we are due to leave the country – resulting in another painful discussion trying to explain what we though was quite a simple fact i.e. we need our passport to leave the country – and we had given the flight details with our application. Our interaction ended with us then being told by the Head of Immigration that she didn’t know why we paid for the third month anyway as we should only pay from the moment we realised we had gone over the 60 days which contradicted everything she had said previously and again, is complete rubbish.
Apologies for the length of this post. We have really enjoyed Ghana and having worked here very much understand that things take time and to expect a bit of bureaucracy - but the GIS were quite amazingly obstructive/contradictory at every turn, when we were nothing but patient and polite, so I just want others to be prepared.
