The Department of Immigration and Citizenship Services has scaled down passport printing by 96 percent, leading to a loss K4 billion in government revenue.

This follows the termination of a K47.4 billion-kwacha production supplies deal with Techno Brain.

Though the figure could be more considering that challenges in passport production started some time last year, the department’s national public relations officer Wellington Chiponde confirmed in a response to a questionnaire on Wednesday that the department is now producing 50 passports a day.

“We have indeed scaled down passport production and currently we are accommodating emergency passport applications, ultimately issuing not more than 50 passports per day, translating to 250 passports in a week.

“All things being equal, the department has the capacity to produce over 1 200 passports in a day,” he said.

And it has been 40 days now since the dawn of the first quarter and if production was normal 48 000 passports might have been produced. And, at an average K90 000 fee for an ordinary passport, government would have raked in K4.3 billion.

However, instead, the department has, as per the 50 per day approach, might have only produced 1 750 passports valued at K157.5 million.

Announced passport deal termination: Chakaka-Nyirenda

Chiponde disclosed that the production reduction came into force at the turn of the new year, a month after the Attorney General Thabo Chakaka-Nyirenda announced the termination of the passports contract with United Arab Emirates firm Techno Brain.

“The approach of scaling down passport production started in the first quarter of 2021 due to inconsistencies in the supply of consumables by the contractor,” he said.

Chiponde said the applicants being prioritised are those “supported by a letter stipulating their urgent case i.e medical, school admission, meetings abroad, international truck drivers and Malawians returning to their country residence.” he said

The Techno Brain contract’s termination came three days after the AG faulted the procurement process of the $60 million (about K47.4 billion) contract between Techno Brain and the Department of Immigration and Citizenship Services.

The contract signed in March 2019 by the then ruling Democratic Progressive Party government was for Techno Brain Global FZE of United Arab Emirates (UAE) to upgrade the country’s passport issuance system.

The deal also involved the introduction of an electronic passport under the Build, Operate and Transfer (BoT) model by providing 800 000 electronic passports under procurement reference number IM/01/272/07.

Techno Brain was, among other materials, supplying booklets, ink ribbons, crystagrams—a series of holographic images—required for the printing of e-passport booklets.

Meanwhile, government has not yet made commitments as to when they expect to engage a new contractor to take up the role.

But a fortnight ago the Attorney General Thabo Chakaka Nyirenda said 13 firms, including eight local ones, have submitted proposals to the government for consideration on the next passport tender.

While he could not disclose the names of the firms, the AG said preference for this tender is for local suppliers in line with Section 44 (10) of the Public Procurement and Disposal of Assets Act which provides for a 60:40 ratio in preference of local suppliers over foreign ones.

Chakaka-Nyirenda said: “We are leaving no stone unturned in our quest to select the next passport supplier. Only a company with the required expertise and a clean record will be picked for the job.

“If it will be an international one, then our position remains that it has to partner with a local firm, otherwise our preference is firms owned by indigenous black Malawians.”

A procurement expert Arnold Chirwa, a former acting director general of Public Procurement and Disposal of Assets Authority (PPDA), feared that contracting a new supplier could result in a protracted exercise if the right ones are not available.

“If the valuation has been done and they have not found a qualified bidder then the government, looking at the product we are talking about which is the passport, should seek for approval from PPDA to go for single sourcing. That is tricky and could stretch the process,” he said.

Passports’ printing scaling down started early last year with some regional immigration offices reducing by 90 percent because the supplier held on to production materials because reportedly government owed it undisclosed money.

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