New e-passport dealer on queue
Government is searching for a new electronic passport supplier following the expiry of a contract with E-Tech Systems, the Procurement and Disposal of Assets Authority (PPDA) has confirmed.
PPDA spokesperson Kate Kujaliwa said in an interview yesterday that the government requested the authority to prepare a bidding document.
She said PPDA has since received a request to approve the use of a procurement method for the procurement of design, supply, installation and commissioning of the e-passport insurance system.
Kujaliwa was responding to our enquiry into reports that the Ministry of Homeland Security was finalising a new passport issuance deal with E-Tech Systems.
She said: “In accordance with its mandate and powers under Sections 5 (1), 5 (2) (b), and 6 (1) (l) of the PPDA Act of 2017, the authority provided advisory services to the procuring entity regarding the preparation of a bidding document, as stipulated under Section 37(3) of the PPDA Act of 2017.”
Secretary for Homeland Security Steven Kayuni did not respond to our questionnaire.
In April this year when government, through Attorney General Thabo Chakaka Nyirenda engaged E-Tech Systems, Kujaliwa asked The Nation to confirm the deal with the Department of Immigration and Citizenship Services.
She said PPDA has nothing to do with such processes.
She said: “Kindly confirm with the department of the thresholds [Immigration Department]. Not all procurements come to PPDA.
Immigration Department spokesperson Wellington Chiponde said in a separate interview yesterday that they were still working on permanent solutions to the passport crisis that has rocked the country since last year.
“Our department is currently in the process of identifying a new passport supplier with the aim of finding permanent solutions and address inevitable bottlenecks that may affect the provision of passport services,” he said.
Chiponde also confirmed that the department was only printing passports in Lilongwe despite the public announcement that Mzuzu and Mangochi regional offices had resumed passport services.
The country has been haunted by hiccups in passport printing since 2021 when Chakaka-Nyirenda cancelled a $60.8 million (about K103.3 billion) contract with TechnoBrain, saying the deal sealed in 2019 was fraught with irregularities the deal signed under the former regime in March 2019.
But in 2023, the government temporarily re-engaged TechnoBrain while searching for a replacement.
The passport system collapsed in February when hackers hit the immigration computer system in what President Lazarus Chakwera described as “a serious national security breach”.
“We are not in the business of appeasing criminals with public money nor are we in the business of negotiating with those who attack our country,” he said, giving immigration chiefs 21 days to restore the system.
However, Malawians keep long waits for passports despite official proclamations that immigration services are back to normal.
E-Tech Systems bolted from the blues as a quick fix to the troubled system, but there were questions over the credibility of the country’s passport with some countries, especially in Europe, snubbing it as substandard.
