Declaration of loss: a template for lost documents in Ghana

Almost every office that replaces a lost document - a passport, a certificate, a land document - asks for two things: a police report and a statutory declaration of loss. This is the declaration.

The template

                 REPUBLIC OF GHANA

               STATUTORY DECLARATION

I, ___________________________________________
[full name, exactly as on your Ghana Card]

of ___________________________________________
   ___________________________________________
[house number, street and town]

Digital address:   ___________________________
Ghana Card No:     GHA-___________________-___
Occupation:        ___________________________

a citizen of Ghana, do solemnly and sincerely
declare as follows:

1.  That I am the declarant herein.

2.  That I was the holder of
    ___________________________________________
    [the document: e.g. Ghana passport]
    No. _______________________________________
    issued by _________________________________
    on ____ / ____ / ________ in my name.

3.  That on or about ____ / ____ / ________
    at ________________________________________
    the said document was
    [ ] lost    [ ] stolen    [ ] destroyed
    in the following way:
    ___________________________________________
    ___________________________________________

4.  That I have searched for the document
    without success.

5.  That I reported the loss at the
    ____________________ Police Station on
    ____ / ____ / ________, reference No.
    ___________________________________________

6.  That I have not sold, pledged or given the
    document to anyone.

7.  That if the document is found, I shall
    return it to the office that issued it.

8.  That I make this declaration in support of
    an application to replace the document, and
    for all other lawful purposes.

AND I make this solemn declaration conscientiously
believing the same to be true, and by virtue of
the Statutory Declarations Act, 1971 (Act 389).

DECLARED at ___________________________
this ______ day of ____________________ 20____


                     _____________________________
                     DECLARANT


BEFORE ME


_____________________________
COMMISSIONER FOR OATHS

Filling it in

Report to the police first, and copy the station and reference into paragraph 5. The report and the declaration go together almost everywhere.

Paragraph 3 says what happened, briefly. “Taken with my bag from a trotro at Circle” is enough. If you do not know how it went, say “I last saw it at … and have not seen it since.”

Several documents lost together? List them all in paragraph 2, each with its number, and swear one declaration - then take certified copies, one for each office.

Paragraph 7 matters for a passport or a Ghana Card. A lost one that turns up again goes back to the office that issued it, not into a drawer: once it is replaced, the old one is no longer yours to use.

Layout. This is the form most Commissioners for Oaths in Accra will recognise: your details at the top, numbered statements of fact, and the closing line that you make it believing it to be true. Some registries and law offices prefer their own layout and will retype it, which is fine - the facts are what you are bringing.

Lying in one is an offence. That is what gives a declaration its weight: you are not proving the facts, you are accepting the consequences if they are false. Say only what you know, and where something comes from somebody else, say so.

Replacing lost documents, in the right order How to swear the declaration