E-passport tender dispute triggers a passport shortage

Sri Lanka‘ s Department of Immigration and Emigration ( DIE) has expedited the procurement process of passports following cabinet approval given this week to place an order of 1 million passports with the present supplier Epic Lanka (Pvt) Ltd.

The department is now running out of passports due to the delay in procuring of passports owing to the current E-passport tender dispute.

This situation has created a possible risk of DIE not being able to issue passports to the applicants who apply for new passports or renew their existing passports, independent checks done with relevant government authorities by the Business Times revealed.

Many applicants will have to be stranded at the passport office as the current stock of passports will be over within the next few months, DIE stock position data showed.

According to DIE data, the current average issuance of passpor ts is 35,000 All Country ( AC) passports per month and 16,000 to West Asia (WA) per month.

However, while the ministry battles to secure the lucrative passport procurement, the AC passport stock has already gone out of stock, and thus DIE is forced to issue amended ME (WA) passports in place of AC passports.

Only around 300,000 ME passports are available to issue for both AC and ME passport applicants, DIE data revealed.

This may cause serious difficulties to travellers who carry such amended ME passports as foreign immigration borders may refuse to accept such passports.

The only option DIE has was to issue ME passports with a printed statement in the ME booklet adding ‘ all countries’, which are restricted to travel outside West Asia, official sources said.

In addition, there is a statement printed on the observation page initialed by an Authorised Officer.

One source pointed out that there is a possibility that some Wester n/ European countries and especially Japan may not acce p t Passports with ‘ endorsements’ as they cannot validate the authenticity of the endorsement.

Security printing industry sources noted that it will take at least three months to supply new passports ( from the date of order confirmation) because the material required to produce passports must be turned out as per specifications of the Government and those materials are not available in the open market.