• Tender to award 750,000 e-passports yet to be awarded, still under Cabinet review: Gunathilaka 

Fresh allegations have emerged in the procurement process for the e-Machine Readable Travel Document (e-MRTD) Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) solution, raising concerns over the transparency and integrity of the process.

Recent developments have revealed that the Minister of Public Security is seeking Cabinet approval for additional procurement outside the originally specified scope, leading to allegations that the Cabinet paper presented on this matter misrepresents key components of the e-MRTD PKI and obscures true procurement costs, fuelling claims of potential fraud and corruption.

On 20 July, the Cabinet of Ministers had rejected Cabinet Paper No.24/2024, citing discrepancies and misleading information.

As reliably learnt by The Sunday Morning, the Department of Immigration and Emigration is under scrutiny following allegations of irregular procurement practices related to the e-MRTD PKI solution.

The Sunday Morning learns that on 12 June 2023, the Ministry of Public Security had issued a call for an Expression of Interest (EOI) for the procurement of five million e-passports. However, this EOI had later been cancelled due to complaints regarding technical specifications and vendor bias. 

A revised bid notice with updated specifications had been published on 9 November 2023. 

Despite attempts to seek clarifications, responses had been delayed or insufficient, and an addendum had been issued on 12 January, communicated just before the bid submission deadline, significantly restricting preparation time.

It is learnt that despite these issues, a bid had been submitted on 16 January. However, the procurement process had faced further flaws, including inadequate responses to bid queries and unfairly restricted bid preparation time. 

On 14 March, the ministry had notified of an intention to award the contract to Thales DIS Finland OY and Just In Time Technologies Ltd.

The National Procurement Commission had later observed several irregularities, including the removal of Intergraf certification requirements without proper publication, unfair timelines for addendum issuance, and inadequate scope of work disclosure.

On 12 March, the ministry had requested clarifications on delivery periods for the first batch of e-passports.

The Public Security Ministry has responded to recent allegations surrounding the e-MRTD PKI procurement process, with Secretary Viyani Gunathilaka strongly denying any wrongdoing.

Gunathilaka stated that all decisions made by the ministry had been in accordance with established processes and that no unilateral decisions had been taken. 

He emphasised that the tender for the procurement of 750,000 e-passports had not been awarded yet and was still under review by the Cabinet.

“We are expecting a decision tomorrow (2),” Gunathilaka confirmed when pressed further about the status of the tender.