News
Only 14,837 passports available
Sri Lanka’s stock of new passports had by Friday dwindled to 14,837, even as desperate applicants queue for days outside the Department of Immigration and Emigration (DIE) to secure travel documents.
The Department now issues just 1,000 passports per day, and only 700 through its one-day service. The average daily demand is 1,300 travel documents, authoritative sources said, adding that the backlog has grown.
Meanwhile, the Court of Appeal on Thursday issued an interim order effective till October 1, 2024, suspending Cabinet’s decision to buy 750,000 machine-readable passports from a consortium of M/s Thales DIS Finland Oy and its Sri Lankan agent, Just In Time (JIT) Technologies (Pvt) Ltd. The purchase was to have been a stopgap solution to a serious shortfall of travel documents caused by the alleged mismanagement of the main tender to buy five million ePassports for the DIE.
Court of Appeal Justice Mohammed Laffar made the order in response to a writ petition filed Epic Lanka (Pvt) Ltd—the losing bidder in the ePassport tender which went to Thales/JIT—and its executive chairman, stating they believed the bidding process related to this ePassport procurement “was compromised and/or tainted with mala fides and/or subverted to unduly favour and assist certain vendors and to the undue disadvantage of others.”
Among the respondents are the chair and members of the Cabinet Appointed Procurement Committee, former Secretary to the Ministry of Public Security Viyani Gunathilaka, former Minister of Public Security Tiran Alles, the Controller General of Immigration and Emigration, the chair and members of the National Procurement Commission (NPC) and the former and current Cabinet of Ministers.
Epic applied for the ePassport tender in partnership with M/s Perum Peruri, Indonesia’s state-owned banknote printer. The petitioners point to several violations, such as non-circulation of pre-bid meeting minutes, “last-minute” introductions of technical criteria and the delay in clarifying crucial questions, allegedly creating uncertainty amongst bidders and severely impeding “their proper and/or fair participation in the bidding process.”
On the government’s urgent efforts to procure 750,000 ordinary passports, the petitioners state that they had offered to supply a 64-page MRP for a cheaper price (US$ 0.092 per page) than Thales (US$ 0.104 per page) whose travel document had 48 pages.
The direct loss incurred by the government in buying passports from Thales would therefore be US$ 576,000, they claim. The DIE would have to purchase lamination machines and bear additional costs for the “invisible personal information” and other licences already included in the price the petitioners had submitted.
They also state there will be “significant delays” in issuing the Thales passports as approximately 196 countries and all of Sri Lanka’s foreign missions would mandatorily have to be informed of the new design, security features and verification techniques, etc.
Viran Corea, PC, with Pramod Perera and Hiruni De Almeida instructed by Neelakandan & Neelakandan appeared for the petitioners, while State Counsel Maithri Amerasinghe Jayatilake appeared for the Attorney General.
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