PMO intervenes to revive rejected MRP deal

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In an unusual instance, the home ministry is set to seek again the approval of the cabinet purchase committee next week for the Tk 1,561-crore programme on machine-readable passport (MRP), visa and national identity card (NID).

Sources said the massive deal was revived through an intervention of the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) which recently sent a letter to the finance minister asking him to approve the scheme. The PMO also wrote to the cabinet division to send the proposal again to the purchase committee.

Sources said the finance minister wants to discuss the matter with the prime minister before it is tabled at the upcoming purchase committee meeting on August 21. The August 21 meeting agenda does not include this programme, but sources said that if the prime minister clears her position on this matter to the finance minister before the meeting, the proposal will be tabled that day.

On July 17, the purchase committee rejected the same deal categorically asking the home ministry to re-tender the MRP and visa component and shelve the costly NID component.

Accordingly, after that meeting the home ministry seemed to be preparing itself for the re-tender. However, behind this preparation a top political force was lobbying with the prime minister all along for the last biggest deal of the present government.

The programme components will remain unchanged. The home ministry will however add a few explanations with its proposal that the purchase committee rejected on July 17.

“If this programme goes to re-tendering, the cost (of the procurement) will go at least 1.5 times higher than the offer we now have,” State Minister for Home Lutfozzaman Babar told The Daily Star at his office Tuesday.

According to Babar, the Cabinet Division has asked the home ministry to re-send to the purchase committee the Tk 1,561 crore (173.54 million Euro) programme, to be awarded to German company Giesecke and Devrient (G&D) GmbH.

“It’s not going back as it was before. We are making a fresh summary in which we will explain some issues raised in the previous purchase committee meeting,” he added.

Spearheading the project since the prime minister gave her consent for MRP, visa and NID on October 16, 2004, the state minister for home ministry claims absolute transparency in the deal. “We have responded to each and every complaints we have received on the tender for the programme,” he said.

He added that the July 17 purchase committee meeting raised two objectionsthat the programme should have been placed before the cabinet for discussion earlier and that the home ministry should at first ensure budgetary allocation for the job.

“But the point is, the prime minister has already approved it in 2004. We have sought allocation and conducted other formalities,” Babar added.

“This scheme is going to immensely benefit the governmentwhichever party heads it in the next term. In the first year, the revenue earning from selling MRP will be Tk 2000 crore. Each passport will cost us Tk 300, while we will sell the same at Tk 5000,” he claimed.

However, sources said that the home ministry has inflated the revenue earning prospect from MRP. While the present demand for passport is around 12 lakh a year, the home ministry put the demand for MRP at 30 lakh in the first year of introduction. Passport experts say, while many people buy multiple passports presentlythe MRP will eliminate all scopes for multiple passports. Therefore, the first year sales might be 5 to 10 percent lower than 12 lakh, they say.

Bangladesh has an international obligation to introduce MRP by 2007. But there is no compulsion for the NID scheme. In addition, there is no approval of the prime minister to set up a national registration department, which will issue the NID. But Babar argues that the home ministry is working on the matter. Sources however wonder why so much haste is made for NID scheme for which there is no compulsion and a national registration department is not set up first.

Besides, till the second week of July, the ministry did not frame any draft law for the NIDwhich is mandatory for such a scheme. Instead it drafted a law a couple of days before the July 17 meeting and sent it to the purchase committee though it was irrelevant. No cabinet member, except for Babar, knows anything about this draft law till date.

Babar says that the programme is one year behind schedule due to various bureaucratic tangles. He said that his ministry did the basic work of identifying manpower requirements but that process became stuck at the level of the finance ministry.

But sources said that when a new body needs to be formed, it must go through an approval process by the national implementation committee on administrative reorganisation (NICAR). The NICAR headed by the prime minister holds one or two meetings a year.

Sources said from the beginning, the home ministry did all the exercises on its own. There was no opinion exchange among different ministries and with external experts. Besides, the ministry did not hire any experienced consultant for such a huge job.

“The whole thing is being driven by the political lobby which has asked for a hefty commission from the German company for getting the project approved,” said a competent source adding, “this is why there is a hurry.”

Though 34 international companies showed interest in the bid, only four were pre-qualified. Then only two bids were submitted. The cabinet purchase committee on July 17 wanted to know how the lowest bid was evaluated.

OBSERVATIONS OF SAIFUR RAHMAN
On July 17, following the purchase committee meeting, finance minister M Saifur Rahman made some remarks on this programme, “the national ID card is a massive issue. It has serious implications all over.”

“I told them (home ministry officials at the meeting) it can not be done in this manner. They said that they have brought along the relevant draft law. I said that we must at first read this law and then take opinions on it. This is why we have closed this chapter,” Saifur said.

The finance minister was not happy about the bid selection process. “We don’t approve awarding such a job to just one company,” Saifur told the press.

A few members of the committee at the meeting heavily objected to the scheme while the others were completely silent. A member opined that if this scheme is approved, a vested interest lobby will just drain out the money without delivering the products, a meeting source told The Daily Star.

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