The American Consul General in Ghana, Elliot Fertik, has revealed that the number of Ghanaian visa applications the United States Embassy receives has tripled since 2019.

According to him, although the increasing numbers of US visa applications is flattering, the high demands outweigh allocated resources present to expedite visa application processes.

This phenomenon, Elliot Fertik said, has contributed significantly to a backlog of applications.

To mitigate this challenge, he announced that the embassy, starting from August 16, would migrate all visa applications onto a new system.

“What is driving the backlog is visa demand and I’ve said before that if you look at the number of people who paid the visa application fee in 2019 before the pandemic and compare it to the amount of people who did so in 2023, the number in 2023 is triple what it was in 2019. So, certainly, we hope this new system will provide some additional enhancements and will be more efficient.

“What is going to drive down the backlog is our efforts to do more interviews and again, we have been processing a lot more applications. This summer we processed 65% more visa applications for students than we did in the corresponding time in 2023,” Fertik said, in a report on citinewsroom.com.

Despite the new policy, applicants whose interviews have been scheduled on or before August 16 can continue to access their accounts at ustraveldocs.com to review appointment details and contact customer service as necessary.

EAN/AE