By: Staff Writer
August 01, Colombo (LNW): Thales and Just in Time Technologies (JITT) have secured a contract to provide biometric passports for Sri Lanka, with an initial batch of 100,000 chip-based passports due by July 2025. The agreement includes an annual supply of one million passports for five years, with the first biometric passports expected to be issued in January.
Initially, the Ministry of Public Security had called for international tenders to outsource the printing of five million ePassports over ten years. This tender was canceled when the Ministry decided that the Department of Immigration and Emigration’s (DIE) updated infrastructure could handle the printing. A new tender was then issued solely for the procurement of ePassport books. Thales and JITT won the tender.
DIE has mandated online applications for passports, limiting daily applications to 800, down from 3,000, causing public outcry and significant revenue loss. Controller General Harsha Illukpitiya explained that this measure aims to reduce congestion and manage the limited stock of machine-readable passports (MRPs) until the ePassports are rolled out next year.
Thales and JITT have since informed that the current DIE infrastructure cannot print the new ePassports, proposing instead to provide a complete printing infrastructure at a per-transaction fee. This proposal has led to a Cabinet paper seeking approval to proceed, which deviates from the original tender terms and violates government procurement policies.
This situation parallels the VFS Visa issuance controversy, where DIE paid a foreign company in Dubai for tourist visa processing, despite having a robust, cheaper system provided locally. The ePassport process seems to be heading in the same direction, with the Ministry supporting the new supplier against their own policies.
The tender documents required the selected company to have the necessary technology and expertise for secure biometric passport production, adhering to International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) standards. Developed and developing countries use ePassports for secure international travel.
The DIE has mandated prior online registration for passport applications until the ePassports are available. Recently, a lack of public awareness about this requirement led to large crowds at the DIE head office.
The government plans to replace the current N Series MRPs with ePassports by next year. After an eight-year delay, the project was reactivated, awarding Thales and JITT the contract to supply five million ePassports over ten years. The first batch of 100,000 ePassports is expected by January 2025, with an annual need for one million passports.
To meet current demand, 300,000 MRPs will be procured from the same company, bypassing the tender process and violating procurement policies. A Cabinet paper proposes overhauling the IT infrastructure for ePassport printing, expected to take 18 months, risking a passport shortage. The original tender was for ePassport books only, with printing to be done using the existing infrastructure.
Thales has proposed a fee-based personalisation system, stating that the current infrastructure cannot handle their ePassports. This would cost over Rs.1 billion and involve procuring their Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) system, essential for ePassport functionality. This proposal, submitted without a tender process, could result in significant public expense and the abandonment of the current personalisation system.
