Three French companies, two Chinese, two German and one company each from Malaysia and Finland have submitted final bids as the extended deadline to submit the tender document expired on Sunday. Officials said an evaluation committee comprising experts formed earlier by the home ministry will now evaluate the bid documents before taking a final decision on awarding the contract for the project. [break]
According to home ministry, the companies submitting the final bids include Aisino Corporation (China), Gemalto Oy (Finland), Consotrium of Thales Communications and Security (France), Budes Druckerei (Germany), Giesecke & Devrient GmbH (Germany), Safran Morpho (France), Oberthur Technologies SA (France), Anhui Communications Services Co Ltd (China) and IRIS Corporation Berhad (Malaysia).
Earlier on June 27, MoHA had decided to extend tender submission deadline of the national ID cards project for 15 days after the previous 15-day extension expired.
Officials said the decision to extend the tender submission deadline was taken with a view to making the bidding process more competitive.
Altogether 50 international bidders had purchased tender forms for the national ID card project over the period.
The National ID Management Center (NIDMC) under MoHA had first announced global tender on April 29 with a 45-day deadline. The deadline was later extended for 15 days to ensure participation of more firms in the multimillion-dollar project.
The government´s multi-million dollar project to distribute biometric national ID cards courted controversy after nearly a dozen aspiring international bidders lodged complaints that the tender specifications were manipulated to suit the interests of one specific company.
Though NIDMC suspended a technical official involved in the manipulation of the specifications and also made amendments to some of the specifications made in the original tender invitation, there are still concerns that the amendments have made the database management system and biometrics, also known as Automated Fingerprint Identification System, vulnerable.
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