MOFA pre-qualified Oberthur Technologies (France), Gemalto (Finland), Sagon Security Printers (France) and 3M Technology (Singapore) for the 72-million US dollar project last October. But the firms, other than Oberthur Technologies, were selected out of 14 firms even though they did not meet the pre-qualification criteria prepared by the ministry. [break]
First, the Pre-Qualification Document says that an interested security printer/firm must have already issued MRPs in four different countries, including under turnkey projects, in the
last 10 years, and issued at least 8,000,000 Machine Readable Passports in the last five years.
But the three firms do not have the experience of issuing MRPs as required to qualify under the Pre-Qualification Document, said impeccable sources at the ministry and in the diplomatic community.
Asked about the countries where the pre-qualified companies met the experience required, Mohan Krishna Shrestha, Chief of Protocol and coordinator of a committee formed to oversee the bidding, declined to give details.
In response to a right-to-information application, the ministry said that information about the firms cannot be shared with media as the Public Procurement Act does not allow them to impart such information while the bidding process is in progress.
Asked why his committee pre-qualified firms not meeting criteria set out in the Pre-Qualification Document, Shrestha said, "We selected them on the basis of available documents." He, however, declined to divulge details about the selection process.
The ministry has called for applications from the four pre-qualified firms in a bid to change manual passports into MRP. Nepal has decided to issue MRPs by April 1, 2010 as per a commitment to the International Civil Aviation Organization.
Around four million manual passports have already been issued and Nepal plans to replace them with MRPs.
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