House: Passport Contract Termination ‘ll Cost FG N22bn

The House of Representatives has advised the federal government against terminating a contract signed with a private firm, Iris Smart Technologies Limited, for the production of electronic passport booklets.

The lawmakers gave the advice while considering and adopting recommendations of the report by the House AdHoc Committee to Investigate the Proposed Domestication and Processing of Nigerian International Passports.

In the report presented by Hon. Ibrahim Muhammad Hafiz, procuring the equipment capable of putting the latest security features in the Nigerian e-passport will cost the government about N22 billion.

The report also stated that the production of 10 million booklets by the firm would be stalled.

The committee explained that an e-passport project is technology based and not a security printing task, as with the Machine-Readable Passport (MRP) era; that the security printing aspect of an e-passport constitutes only 13 per cent of the various components of an e-passport booklet; and that the domestication of the manufacturing of e-passport booklets does not eliminate the need for foreign exchange and importation of components.

The committee also explained that an e-passport booklet is an active electronic device, as opposed to the old MRP, which is a merely printed booklet; that the chip embedded in the e-passport has a security access module that allows for a ‘handshake’ with and amongst other devices and equipment within the e-passport network; and that the system does not allow the “infiltration” or use of nonprequalified third-party devices or other booklets within the network.