According to credible Government Sources, the Permanent Secretary at the ministry of interior, Assan Tangara has on July 19 signed a five year ID Cards contract with SEMLEX, a belgian firm that provides solutions to secure inditification and authentication using biometric information.
It could be recalled that Justice Minister, Aboubacarr Tambadou during a press confrence disclosed that The Governemnt of The Gambia has decided to award the ID Cards contract to SEMLEX. Minister Tambadou at the press conference added that a Ministerial taskforce was set up to look into the issue and they recognized and restored the contract with SEMLEX.
The SEMLEX’s contract was terminated by the Jammeh administrastion shortly after the Ministry of Interior embarked on it.
The contract which is signed for 5 years gives 60% of the revenue to SEMLEX while 40% goes to The Gambia Government.
SEMLEX will only be printing biometric ID Cards while Muhammed Bazzi’s company, Afri Card does the biometric passports.
A Gambian based in The US, Mariama Njie said she thinks The Gambia Government did not do their homework on this issue.
“when negotiating a contract, it should be favorable to the government not the other way round” She added that the Government dropped the ball on this.
A Gambian-owned company, Pristine Consulting was competing with SEMLEX for the contract but according to Justice Minister Tambadou, after all the options were put before cabinet, they decided to go with SEMLEX.
Tambadou added that Pristine Consulting’s contract for the production of ID Cards expired in 2014.
A Gambian activist and social commentator, Pata Saidykhan said the issue of foreign businesses producing National documents is a project that would raise legitimate concerns, especially considering the recent reporting about Semlex in other parts of the court. He added that Even though these are allegations, they cannot just be dismissed.
“Ideally, I’d have preferred a Gambian business to have owned this document production. I’ve heard the Attorney General give reasons for continuing with the valid, existing contract with Semlex instead of going with a Gambian own”.He said
”They believed that a valid contract exists, and that they risk high arbitration cost should they breach that but I hope the Government had taken serious due diligence in ensuring, if not guaranteeing security, quality and preventing our National documents falling into hands that are not Gambian.That is a risk we cannot afford’. He concluded.
