ISLAMABAD: A dubious procedure adopted in bidding for the supply of e-passport personalisation system has raised questions over the transparency of the procurement process.

According to documents available with Dawn, rules were flagrantly flouted, exposing a tilt towards the company offering the system at around $800,000 costlier than the lowest bidder.

Three international bidders participated in the tenders floated by the Directorate General of Immigration and Passports in October 2016 for the supply of the system.

They were: Muhlbauer (Germany), Safran Identity $ Security and Gemalto (France).

An e-passport contains biometric information that can be used to authenticate the identity of the traveler.

The equipment meant to store the biometric information in the passport data page is known as the personalisation system.

The tender was awarded to the highest bidder instead of the one offering a lower bid

Initially, the tender document issued by the directorate general was structured in such a way as to facilitate the award of the contract to a specific party by mentioning the feature of the image perforation, outlining the required technical specifications.

The feature is the patent right of M/s IAI, which is the original equipment manufacturer (OEM) partner of M/s Gemalto.

The decision was a clear violation of Rule 10 of the Public Procurement Rules 2004, which reads: “Specifications shall allow the widest possible competition and shall not favour any single contractor or supplier nor put others at a disadvantage. Specifications shall be general and shall not include references to brand names, model numbers, catalog numbers or similar classifications.”

The document was, however, amended on the basis of objections raised by other participants. The final decision was to be taken on a technical and financial score - with 700 marks for technical and 300 for financial reasons.

Muhlbauer, Safran Identity and Security and Gemalto had offered to supply the system at $4.28 million, $4.44 million and $4.99 million, respectively. In other words, the difference between the highest (Gemalto) and the lowest bid (Muhlbauer) was around $800,000.

At the opening of the technical bids on December 13, the directorate general of passports reluctantly shared the technical scores which disclosed that the company which had offered the system at the highest rate — Gemalto — had been given almost full marks — 690 out of 700.

The score of Muhlbauer and Safran identity and security were 545 and 541, respectively.

The unfair score smacked of manipulation as the detailed mark-sheet was not shared and a situation was created where the company offering to sell the most expensive machine would win the bid even if it gets 156 marks in the financial bid and the rest of the two obtain full marks (300).

It was also surprising that M/s Safran had also offered the same machine as M/s Gemalto.

All the three competitors meet the experience criteria and offered compliant solutions.

At the time of opening of the technical bids, it was pointed out by two bidders that Gemalto had not complied with the procedure as explained in the tender rules as it was not sealed in one outer envelope.

But the objection was overruled. Besides raising objections verbally, formal communications was also sent to the director general immigration and passports.

Two of the three bidders have asked the director general to consider the prices offered.

“It is requested that an impartial scrutiny of the tender may please be done before awarding the tender to a bidder who has proposed the highest prices for their solution which is more than 700K above the financial lowest bidder…” said Francois Rothenburger, the regional head of Safran, in a letter to the director general.

Muhlbauer, on the other hand, has asked the interior minister to carry out the technical evaluations again without the “intervention of the DG I&P.”

When contacted, the Director ©eneral mmigration and assports, Usman Akhtar Bajwa, denied any favourtism in the tendering process.

He said the technical evaluation had been carried out by a committee and the impression that the highest bidder was being facilitated was not true.

He said the detailed technical score would be placed on the website of the Public Procurement Regulatory Authority (PPRA). The process is still underway and the contract yet to be awarded, he added.

No dates for the final award of the contract have yet been announced, neither the technical score sheet posted on the PPRA website, he claimed.

Published in Dawn December 27th, 2016