Sri Lanka considers another tender to solve passport crisis

Sri Lanka’s government is likely to open another tender for e-passports after a legal dispute caused a backlog of thousands of passport applications and left citizens waiting in long queues outside the passport offices.

In July last year, the Sri Lankan former government announced that Thales and its local partner Just in Time Technologies (JITT) had been awarded the contract to supply the country with 750,000 machine-readable passports (MRL) and 5 million e-passports with biometric chips meeting the latest International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) standards.

In September, however, the Court of Appeal halted the government-approved contract after a petition was filed by Epic Lanka, a former supplier and the losing bidder. The company alleged that the procurement was irregular and that the tender conditions were changed without enough time or clarification.

The court case has plunged the country into a passport crisis. Thousands of Sri Lankans have been attempting to leave the country after an economic crisis shook the island in 2022. Aside from migrant workers, the shortages have put students studying abroad at risk. The lack of available passports has generated queues controlled by police forces and a black market of middlemen promising to obtain passports for a fee.

In October, the Court of Appeal was informed that the Immigration Department only has around 13,080 passports left, enough for the next 13 days. The court cleared the urgent purchase of 750,000 machine-readable passports (MRPs) from Thales, allowing the new National People’s Power (NPP) government to use it as a stopgap measure.

Concerns about passport supplies, however, have persisted with a backlog of more than 100,000 passport applications recorded in December. Sri Lanka’s current batch of 750,000 passports is expected to run out between July and September.

The government has not been able to float another tender for the procurement of e-passports due to the ongoing legal dispute, according to Public Security Minister Ananda Wijepala.

“We believe we will need a further 500,000 machine-readable passports, and we will call an open tender for that soon,” says Wijepala, who is also in charge of the Department of Immigration and Emigration (DIE).

“Though we haven’t solved the issue 100 percent, we have been able to manage it. We believe that it will be resolved soon,” the minister told the Sunday Times.

The Sri Lankan passport crisis is viewed by some local media as a result of the former government bungling the tender. The Immigration Department invited expressions of interest (EOI) in June 2023 while the government publicly promised Sri Lankans would have e-passports by January 2025. The bid conditions, however, were changed with suspicions rising that they are being made to favor certain parties, according to the Sunday Times.

The expressions of interest were canceled and a new call for bids was introduced in November 2023. Four companies applied with one disqualified at the preliminary stage, leaving the Thales and JITT consortium, Epic Lanka and Metropolitan. Thales and its partner were eventually awarded the contract.

Article Topics

biometric passport  |  biometrics  |  digital ID  |  Sri Lanka  |  tender  |  Thales Digital Identity and Security