By IOMMIE CHIWALO
LILONGWE-(MaraviPost)-The Centre for Democracy and Economic Development Initiatives (CDEDI) has urged Malawians of goodwill to rise above party politics and defend the credibility of the Malawian passport.
Addressing the press in Lilongwe, CDEDI Executive Director Sylvester Namiwa, says restoring the credibility of the Malawi passport will help to save tax payers’ money which is being wasted through highly-insensitive and costly decisions being made by some selfish individuals.
He says his organisation is immediately demanding that Malawi Government should swallow its pride and revert to the Techno Brain assessment report, recover the initial system within a month, at a cost not more than US$3 million (K5.1 billion) as opposed to procuring a new system which will cost not less than US$40 million (K69 billion), bearing in mind that it has already spent $46 million (K79.6 billion).
“It should also be emphasized that all the hardware for this system is intact in all passport printing centres, namely Blantyre, Lilongwe, Mzuzu and Mangochi. Hence the need for Malawians to stand up and force the government to come to its senses and act in the best interest of all as opposed to serving selfish interests of few individuals, otherwise, we shall be forced to agitate for the inevitable protests,” he said.
Namiwa feels the current man-made passport crisis represents nothing but a gross human rights violation that has been entertained for unnecessarily too long, and has culminated into a huge international disgrace.
He has therefore urged authorities to swallow their pride and invite Techo Brain to reinstall the passport issuance system whose infrastructure is intact in all the passport issuance centres.
The CDEDI Executive Director highlighted that printing of the Malawi passport is a preserve of the Department of Immigration and Citizenship Services hence no need for a new passport issuance system.
Namiwa has, however, challenged some greedy Malawians who have caused this mess at the Immigration Department that they can still make their dirty money by supplying passport booklets, ink, ribbons and crystal grams while the system is running smoothly as opposed to putting spanners in the works and bring country at a standstill.
“Let alone, make more dirty money through procuring a parallel passport issuance system to the current one,”.
According to Namiwa, CDEDI has arrived at this position following its findings which have revealed that the Malawi Government is in the process of procuring a new passport supplier, an exercise that will cost taxpayers not less than $40 million (approximately K69 billion).
Without wasting tax payers’ money, CDEDI is proposing that Malawi Government should simply swallow its pride and let Techno Brain recover the system at a cost which is not exceeding $3 million (about K5.1 billion).
Government through its spokesman, Moses Kumkuyu, is yet to respond on our questionaire when we requested for clarity on the current passport issuance system status.
But for records sake, in February 2019, the Malawi Government, through the Department of Immigration and Citizenship Services (DoICS), engaged Techno Brain to upgrade the Passport Issuance System (PIS) and introduce an electronic passport (e-passport) under a three-year Build, Operate and Transfer (BOT) agreement pegged at $60.8 million (about K105 billion).
However, the contract was controversially terminated eight months before expiry, when Immigration had paid about $10 million (K17 billion).
Since there was no alternative company to provide passport services, government entered into interim arrangements with the same organisation [Techno Brain] worth $2.5 million (K4.3 billion) and $3 million (K5.1billion) respectively.
In spite of the above, a settlement agreement was made, purportedly based on specific performance where $22 million (K38 billion) was paid and Techno Brain handed over the system to the Department of Immigration, together with the Source Code.
At the time of the handover, government had paid almost $39 million (K67 billion) plus $7 million (K12 billion) fine for breach of contract, translating to a cool $46 million (K79.6 billion).
The initial package
The $60.8 million (K105 billion) contract, whose passport was pegged at roughly $76 each (about K90,000).
Nonetheless, the ICT section within the Immigration Department operated the system smoothly until the Source Code landed in the wrong hands, marking the birth of the unprecedented passport crisis in the country.
Sadly it was discovered that some self-acclaimed ICT experts closely linked to the powers that be, hatched a plan to turn the passport issuance system into their own cash cow.
According to investigations by CDEDI, to maximize their proceeds, they planned to take out Techno Brain, got hold of the Source Code and made several attempts to bypass the initial system.
“This led to the system shutting them out, creating the never-ending crisis we are witnessing now. Those familiar with the system, argue that these politically connected individuals could have achieved their selfish motive without necessarily harming the whole system, since they could turn to supplying blank booklets, crystal gram, ink and ribbons, they could source from Singapore and Hungary. But destroying the whole system for personal gains was simply absurd,”
And after the purported ICT experts, led by the e-Government department, tried in vain, to recover the system, Techno Brain was invited to conduct an assessment on the extent of the damage, and advise on the possibility of restoring the system.
The records show that the assessment was done in January, 2024 and a report was submitted to the authorities where Techno Brain indicated that the system could be recovered in eight days for Blantyre and within a month for Lilongwe, Mzuzu and Mangochi at a cost of $1.6 million (K2.7 billion) since then there was no any service level agreement between the two parties.
“This proposal was not only shot down, but was presented to Malawians as ransom money, demanded by the systems purported hackers,”
What CDEDI is against is the shameless hacking narrative from government which is only aiming at achieving it’s option to procure a six-month contract with E-Tech Systems to the tune of K897 million, in total disregard of prevailing procurement laws and regulations.
“Actually, the K897 million was just for designing the basic system and procurement of two manually-operated printers installed in Lilongwe,” discloses Namiwa.