By Altin Fuga
afuga@tiranatimes.com
Albania’s most recent identity cards were issued in 1992. Since then, Albanians have operated with birth certificates, sometimes with a photo attached and stamped by notarius publicus. As for passports, the previous system was unreliable and a number of abuses were discovered during the last few years. Of note, the European Union considers the issuance of reliable passports as a condition for a liberalisation of visas with Albania. Finally, yet importantly, identity cards were intended to improve the quality of the country’s electoral process. Therefore, reports that the procurement of new passports had begun were more than welcomed. Only a month ago, the Ministry of Interior announced the winner of the tender, the French company, Sagem Securite. However, the announcement of the winner was quickly followed by claims that the process was botched. Only two months ago, the bidders were competing with each other at the Ministry of Interior. Now, they stand united at the offices of the Procurement Ombudsman and/or Procurement Agency some have filed complaints claiming the bid process was flawed and demanding its annulment.
The Albanian Minister of Interior denies all allegations
The Albanian Minister of Interior, Bujar Nishani, denies all allegations; he claims the process was transparent and Sagem Securite proposed the best deal. Nishani dismissed the objections by the losing companies, as well as the accusations of the Socialists, as nonsense. “The Terms of Reference were prepared with international assistance and all the recommendations that we reflected upon came from this assistance, which was contracted by UNDP. Second, out of four qualifying international companies, Sagem Securite was evaluated and received 93.15 points and it offered a price of ALL 1167 per item for the identity cards, and ALL 5000 per item for biometric passports. I am here to confirm, once again, our resoluteness to stand against any pressure or attempt to damage the process of providing the Albanians with electronic identity cards and biometric passports. The Albanians are going to participate in the next elections with passports and identity cards and, naturally, we are constantly working to realise and make possible for Albanians to be equipped with biometric passports which will provide the tremendous opportunity of free movement”, said Nishani.
The ToR were changed only one month before the bidding was closed
The Ministry of Interior worked on the Terms of Reference for the new passports for more than two years. However, in the latest phase, the Ministry was helped by a specialist from the Netherlands, Fons Knopjes. Knopjes is said to be a former employee of SDU, a Dutch company that produces passports and identity cards. On January 28, 2008, only a month before the bidding deadline, the Ministry of Interior announced that the bid specifications had changed. The new passports were to be printed in polycarbonate, and not on paper, as previously announced. The change complicated the bidding process and the bidders expressed their frustration. The SDU passports, produced in polycarbonate, fit perfectly into the new specifications. Though SDU was not a bidder, it is a possible subcontractor to the winner, Sagem.
The winner is not ISO certified
The Ministry of Interior stipulated in paragraph 23, point 2/3, that the tender winner should be certified according to ISO 27000. A company certified by ISO 27000 standards (Information technology- Security techniques- Information security management systems) has in place the necessary information security controls regarding information management. Sagem represented as its own an ISO certificate that belongs to Sagem Orga, its German sister company. Both Sagem Securite and Sagem Orga are part of the SAFRAN Group. According to the disqualified companies, Sagem and Sagem Orga are two different legal entities. As such, the ISO certification of Sagem Orga is not transferable to Sagem. Further, Sagem Orga is not a bidder or a co-bidder with Sagem. It is not even mentioned in the bidding documents.
Insufficient bidding documents
Also, the Ministry of Interior requested bidding companies provide 15 copies of personalised passports and 15 copies of personalised identity cars. Sagem only supplied 15 passports in its bid documents. However, these were created earlier by Dutch SDU in 2004 and were standard samples that included blank copies, although the passports were equipped with the required electronic chip. Apparently, the 2008 ToR of the Albanian Ministry of Interior fit to SDU’s 2004 standard.
Sagem is going to outsource over 40% of the contract
According to the ToR, the winner should not outsource more than 40% of the total value of the contact. However, calculations indicate that Sagem cannot comply with this requirement. Since Sagem is not a printing company and has no printing facility, Sagem routinely subcontracts the production of materials and printing to other companies, such as Sagem Orga.
Sagem offered the second lowest price
Oberthur Technologies offered the lowest price, Euro 7.92 for identity cards and Euro 37.50 for passports. Sagem Securite offered higher prices, Euro 9.57 for identity cards and Euro 40.99 for passports. In total, the price offered by Sagem was 19 percent higher than that of Oberthur.
Long and significant experience
Sagem claims that it has prior experience providing passports to the United Arab Emirates and Nigeria. In the UAE, Sagem subcontracted to GEMALTO for nearly 90 percent of the total value of the contract. The UAE experience violates the Albanian 40 percent requirement. As for Nigeria, the fulfilling of the contract, according to the Nigerian newspapers, was not very successful. According to the BBC, the Nigerian Independent Corrupt Practices Commission (ICPC) charged three former members of the government and two high-ranking bureaucrats with seeking bribes from Sagem. According to the BBC, “SagemƷas awarded the $214m contract to produce national identity cards for Nigeria’s adult population in 2001. However, after one year, only a handful of people had actually received their cards”.
Always Look On the Bright Side of Life
According to Reuters, on February 7, 2008 the Information Access Division of the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) released the results of the Minutiae Interoperability Exchange Test (MINEX) II Performance of Fingerprint Match-On-Card (MOC) Algorithms. The Sagem Morpho performance was reported by NIST to be the “most accurate Match-On-Card implementation” of all participants and the only one to meet the standards for use in U.S. federal programs. The Sagem Morpho’s algorithms achieved very low error rates. Regardless of which of the 19 approved manufacturers created the reference template, the Sagem matcher was able to successfully perform the fingerprint match with a one percent or less error rate. Sagem’s algorithms were submitted for testing on a Sagem Orga card. Sagem Morpho is the fully owned U.S. subsidiary of Sagem Securite.
