KATHMANDU, JUL 04 - In a “no-stone-left-unturned” approach, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MoFA) is determined to complete the awarding of the bid concerning supply of Machine Readable Passports (MRP) contract before the new government takes charge. Officials say this is because it wants to ward off “unnecessary political pressure” that crippled the earlier bidding process.

Four international security firms have submitted their papers to supply the MRPs to Nepal in a competitive global bidding process, a multimillion rupee project which aims to fulfill Nepal’s international obligation of adopting the smart passport.

“We want to avoid any kind of political pressure and maneuvering regarding the MRP deal which should also ensure and uphold the credit of the ministry. If we drag our feet this time, it would be an irreparable injury,” said an official. The four companies—De La Rue (UK), 3M (Singapore), Oberthur (France) and Perum Peruri of Indonesia—have submitted the bid at MoFA.

The MoFA announced a fresh MRP bid on May 18 with a 45-day deadline, which expired on Thursday to submit the applications for interested bidders.

“A day after the deadline expires, we will immediately begin evaluating the papers and if we keep pace, within a week we will finish evaluating the documents,” the official said. There is no doubt that we want to skip political maneuvering to avoid an untoward situation in order to finish within this transition period, the official said. Earlier, the bid was cancelled following a dispute that erupted between Foreign Minister Sujata Koirala and Foreign Secretary Madan Kumar Bhattarai over the specification issue. The minister wanted to change it but the Secretary opposed it strongly. “We will work within the time frame,” he said.    

MoFA officials believe that the incumbent establishment may not push any agenda or put political pressure as it is going soon and the coming government would be too green about the matter. “Before the new Foreign Minister assumes office, we will settle the evaluation process and ask him to ratify the decision taken by the evaluation committee headed by the Chief of Protocol,” the official said.