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Smart passport deal gets done, finally
A Handshake in the end: Florian Pacquelin of Oberthur Technologies (left) and Mukti Nath Bhatta, Chief of Protocol at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs after signing the MRP deal in Kathmandu on Friday.
KATHMANDU, AUG 27 -
Overcoming several hurdles, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MoFA) and French company Oberthur Technologies signed the much-hyped Machine Readable Passports (MRP) agreement on Friday evening, the second deal in the six-year-long MRP hoopla.
The MRP project hit several hurdles as Foreign Minister Sujata Koirala and Prime Minister Madhav Kumar Nepal kept on flip-flopping on their own decisions.
The affair started with the then government in 2004 deciding to introduce MRPs. The deal covers the supply, printing, and personalisation of four million passports (‘plus or minus 15 percent’) for another five years. “According to the agreement, ‘plus or minus 15 percent’ means it has to supply 4.6 or 3.4 million passports as per necessity.
If it completes delivery of the four million passports before five years, the deal will be automatically scrapped,” Mukti Nath Bhatta, the Chief of Protocol, said.
This is the second MRP deal after the one signed with India in March, which was scrapped later by the incumbent government following pressure from a Parliamentary panel and the UCPN (Maoist).
Bhatta and Florian Pacquelin, the Business Development Director of Oberthur, Asia, signed the contract.
As per the agreement, Oberthur will supply 400,000 MRPs within 70 days, at the rate of US$ 3.59 per copy.
Of the first 400,000 copies, Oberthur will provide 350,000 ordinary, 15,000 official, 10,000 diplomatic passports and 25,000 travel documents.
Foreign Secretary Madan Kumar Bhattarai, Deputy Head of Mission at the French Embassy Jean Romicianu and senior MoFA officials were witness to the deal. If all goes well, Nepal will issue the first MRP after 85 days.
Bhattarai said the government’s failure to meet the international deadline to adopt MRP had become an issue of prestige for the country.
“We extended the deadline twice but now we have sealed the deal,” he said. The revised deadline for the first MRP copy issuance is Dec. 30, 2010.
“The ministry is committed to distributing MRPs to the general public within two to three weeks of receiving the supply of MRPs,” a MoFA press release said.
If Oberthur fails to deliver the passport on the given deadline, the company must pay 0.05 % (a total cost of the project) as penalty on a daily basis. Refuting doubts, Pacquelin said the quality of the passport would be very good. “We have the experience as we have supplied such passports to 40 countries,” he said.
Though the deal has been sealed, officials involved in the project say chances are that further obstacles may hit the project unless the first consignment of the MRP arrives.
Timeline
2004 Govt decides to adopt MRP
Dec. 1, 2009 Global bidding begins
Dec. 4, 2009 Indian envoy writes to MoFA
Jan. 14, 2010 Bid cancelled citing ‘technical reasons’
Jan. 16 Indian Foreign Minister visits Nepal
Feb. 25 PAC directs resumption of earlier bid
Mar. 25 Govt awards contract to India
April 7 SC issues stay on deal
April 11 Govt withdraws deal
May 17 MoFA starts fresh bidding
July 6 Oberthur picked as lowest bidder
Aug 7 SC okays deal
Aug. 9 Sujata refuses to approve insignia
Aug 13 Cabinet asks PM to take a call
Aug 26 PM formally approves deal
Posted on: 2010-08-28 08:48
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