Poland to complain to EU over alleged fraud in Sri Lanka’s e-passport personalization tender procedure

Colombo, May 4 (Daily Mirror) - The Polish government is contemplating lodging a complaint with the EU over an allegedly fraudulent e-passport personalization tender procedure by the Sri Lankan government after the Polish Security Printing Works (PWPW) and six other international bidders were rejected without any credible explanations.

The Daily Mirror learns that the tender bid for the issuance of personalized e-passports to the Department of Immigration and Emigration of Sri Lanka was published by the government on April 27, 2025 and eight international companies had applied for the tender.

The eight companies that applied were German government owned Veridos GmbH, UAE based Tahaluf Al Emarat Technical Solutions, Indian based Madras Security Printers Pvt. Ltd, UAE based United Printing and Publishing, Thales Finland which is French based but the bid was put through their Finland office, France based IN Group, Polish government owned PWPW and Malaysian based IRIS Corporation Berhad.

While all the companies had applied for the tender on time, and once the applications were closed, the government wrote to PWPW stating that they had secured less marks and Thales Finland had secured the bid. However, they were advised to appeal if they wish so.

The Daily Mirror learns that the remaining six companies were also informed they had failed to secure the bid citing various different reasons.

Representatives from PWPW told the Daily Mirror that they and three other companies decided to appeal and it is learnt that the appeal board then informed the government to re-evaluate the bid from PWPW and consider opening the financial proposal since PWPW had adequately convinced the appeal board that they were technically qualified and had submitted all necessary documents to score more than minimum qualifying marks.

However, even after the re-evaluation, the government failed to open their price bids while Thales Finland’s bids were open from the day they were selected. It is very controversial whether a fair and reasonable re-evaluation had been done by the same evaluation committee.

Representatives from PWPW therefore suspect foul play and decided to seek a meeting with Foreign Minister Vijitha Herath to raise serious concerns over the bid procedure.

In a letter sent on March 13, 2026, PWPW informed Minister Herath that since they were the oldest and most respected high security printing company worldwide, wholly owned by the State Treasury of Poland, PWPW had a remarkable track record of success, particularly in the delivery of critical national projects in secure documentation and have delivered similar projects to Poland and several other EU countries.

They also informed in the letter that a delegation from PWPW accompanied by a representative from the Polish Embassy to India, Sri Lanka and Maldives were planning to make a visit to Sri Lanka on March 23, 2026.

They informed Minister Herath that the purpose of the meeting was to express serious concerns regarding the procurement process adopted on the e-passport tender procedure called by the Department of Immigration and Emigration under the Ministry of Public Security.

“Given the national significance of this project, PWPW which is a 100% owned by the Government of Poland, would like to strongly advocate for the re-evaluation of the technical proposals especially the one submitted by PWPW. We propose to evaluate our bid or bids via an independent Technical Evaluation Committee (TEC) comprising of DIE officials, Ministry of Public Security officials, Ministry of Digital Economy officials and Ministry of Finance officials so there is a cross section of government officials and balance representation in the TEC,” PWPW notified Minister Herath in the letter.

This letter was supported by another letter released by the Embassy of Poland in New Delhi saying the Embassy supported the request to arrange the solicited meetings with representatives of the Sri Lankan Foreign Affairs Ministry and the Sri Lankan Ministry of Public Security.

However representatives from PWPW told the Daily Mirror that they are yet awaiting a response to the letter by the Foreign Affairs Ministry to the meeting request.

In a separate letter sent to Public Security Minister Ananda Wijepala, PWPW informed him that they did not agree with the explanations of their bid response as the company had fully complied with the eligibility criteria and strongly believed that they had submitted a comprehensive and a competitive bid with adequate documentation as required in the bidding document.

The Daily Mirror learns that Thales DIS Finland in partnership with its Sri Lankan agent Just In Time Technologies Pvt Ltd. is the same company that was selected by former Minister Tiran Alles in September 2024 under the previous government to supply 750,000 N - series machine readable passports. This controversial deal was however challenged in court over allegations of bypassing procurement guidelines.