News
As backlog grows, passport chiefs fly to Poland factory
View(s):- Urgent moves to print Machine Readable Passports; ePassports delayed till Jan.
By Namini Wijedasa
As the backlog of unfulfilled applications rises daily, the Controller General and a Deputy Controller General of Immigration are on a factory visit to Poland to inspect the production of a machine-readable passport (MRP) hastily ordered to tide over the “emergency” created by a bungled ePassport tender.
The MRPs are from a new supplier named Thales DIS Finland Oy, which, with its local partner, Just In Time Technologies (Pvt) Ltd (JIT), won the Public Security Ministry’s
tender for ePassports earlier this year. However, late changes to the bid structure and conditions caused a delay, which saw the Department of Immigration and Emigration’s (DIE) existing passport stock rapidly deplete before production even started on the ePassports.
A subsequent tussle between existing passport provider Epic Lanka and JIT to sell MRPs to the department as a stopgap measure—to deal with the serious shortfall arising from the tender mismanagement—ended with the latter winning an order for 750,000 books. “This MRP is being sold at a few cents cheaper than the ePassport price of Euro 4.62,” an authoritative source said.
The first books are due to arrive in late October. They will look different from the existing ones and contain other security features, mandating that each page must be inspected and approved by the department officials. But even this quantity is unlikely to satisfy demand as the backlog keeps growing, official sources said. To cater to the urgent order, Thales has postponed production of the new ePassports till January next year.
Epic Lanka dominated passport supply for 23 years without tender after winning the first order. But it had legal grounds to provide the stopgap order under its existing contract with the DIE, a competitor pointed out. “Ordering MRPs from JIT through the same agreement that awarded them the ePassport tender is a fundamental tender violation,” he said. He also said the Epic passport, while more expensive than the Thales MRP, had a significantly higher number of pages and did not need to be approved anew by border controls around the world.
Meanwhile, the DIE is yet to float the tender to buy the public key infrastructure (PKI) for the Sri Lankan ePassport. This two-key encryption allows the Sri Lankan passport’s PKI to be lodged with the International Civil Aviation Organisation’s public key directory (PKD) for access by immigration entities worldwide. Delays in this procurement will further hold up the introduction of ePassports to the country.
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