Govt Defends Decision In Passport Deal East African Standard 10 May 2004 Page: 4
The Government's technical evaluation team approved a proposal made to it by a French firm to supply immigration security and documents control equipment to the Department of Immigration, it has emerged.
The French firm Francis Charles Oberthur (FCO), in collaboration with Anglo Leasing and Financing Ltd gave a proposal that contained a comprehensive immigration and border control system which could have covered eight components of aspects of immigration.
It has also been established that whereas FCO through its financier Anglo Leasing, were charging Sh385 million for a Passport Issuing System only, its competitors, De La Rue were charging Sh936 million.The Ministry of Home Affairs termed as "favourable and advantageous" the technical proposal given to it by the French firm.
A briefing document handed over to the Ministry and made available to the East African Standard, showed that Government Information Technology Service (GITS), which planned the computerisation of the whole passport system said FCO’s technical proposal met the immigration and security requirement outlined for Kenyas immigration Department.The GITS said the FCOs proposal was acceptable on every dimension and all criteria scoring above 90 per cent overall on technical responsiveness.
The Government department also found out that with French firm proposal Kenyas passports would now meet new international standards for security and will have advanced technology functions and high security features including security coding images, bar codes and ghost images of the photos.FCOs proposal also offered to extend a financial arrangement (loan) of 31 million (Sh2.85 billion) to the Kenya Government for a period of six years.
The issue of the loan came up after it emerged that the Government did not have sufficient funding in the budget for the proposed costs of Sh850 to 900 million required for the passport issuing system.
The Government had to undertake the project following international pressure on Kenya to upgrade its security and anti-terrorism capacities and services increases. This included pressure regarding immigration functions, new generation passports, high security visas and security control at borders.
The French firm was ready to provide; high security passport issuing system, high security passports (1,500,000 over 5 years), high security visa issuing system for border points, high security new generation visas (5 million over 5 years).
Other provisions were a high security border control and immigration monitoring system, a central passport and visa database and management system, automated revenue collection system and database and immigration records.
Last month, Ntonyiri MP Maoka Maore (Kanu) accused the Government of overpaying an immigration security tender by about Sh1.7 billion.
Questions were raised in Parliament as to why, with the lowest tender for immigration security and documents control at about Sh936 million, the Narc administration offered Sh2.7 billion instead.
It has emerged, however, that the Sh936 million quoted by the MP was only for one component (Passport Issuing System) out of the eight components listed above.However, the Government in its report, said the project was undertaken as a security project and followed due process including technical evaluation, review by the Attorney-General chambers and by the Ministry of Finance.
It was approved by the Finance Minister and executed by the Ministry of Finance and Ministry of Home Affairs.