EPIC Lanka respones : "Registration of Persons, Immigration & Emigration Depts. are dens full of thieves."
Oct 14, 2017
EPIC Lanka has responsed to our news "Registration of Persons, Immigration & Emigration Depts. are dens full of thieves." which was published on 26 th September 2017.
The full text of response publish below as accepting ' Right to Reply'
Letter to the editor in response to the Lankanewsweb's article "Registration of Persons, Immigration & Emigration Depts. are dens full of thieves."
Your article "Registration of Persons, Immigration & Emigration Depts. are dens full of thieves" (Sep. 26, 2017) addressed the important issue of ensuring Government Procurement Entities getting the full benefit of an open, competitive and transparent tender process conducted in compliance with the relevant national procurement guidelines. However, we find that the article is incorrect, malicious and contains a number of falsehoods. We, EPIC Lanka (Pvt) Ltd. categorically deny the baseless allegations leveled therein, and wish to state that we were not involved in any unethical practices or conspire to manipulate printing prices to obtain undue and unrealistic profit margins.
Your article "Registration of Persons, Immigration & Emigration Depts. are dens full of thieves" (Sep. 26, 2017) addressed the important issue of ensuring Government Procurement Entities getting the full benefit of an open, competitive and transparent tender process conducted in compliance with the relevant national procurement guidelines. However, we find that the article is incorrect, malicious and contains a number of falsehoods. We, EPIC Lanka (Pvt) Ltd. categorically deny the baseless allegations leveled therein, and wish to state that we were not involved in any unethical practices or conspire to manipulate printing prices to obtain undue and unrealistic profit margins.
We write to you to bring to your kind attention to correct these erroneous and misleading assertions in your article with humble request to make the necessary corrections in order to ensure that your website will have a reputation for the legitimacy and truthfulness of the news you publish.
EPIC Lanka (Pvt) Ltd., which was founded by Dr. Nayana Dehigama, was a member of the consortium led by HieTech Padu Bhd Malaysia, to whom the Tender for Supply of Blank Travel Documents and Printing and Personalization System was awarded by the Department of Immigration & Emigration, in 2003. We wish to place on record that said Tender was awarded after an open,
competitive and transparent tender process conducted in compliance with the national procurement guidelines prevailed at the time. Our bid contained the lowest evaluated price of the tender, which was 60% less than the price at which the Department of Immigration and Emigration was then purchasing passports from a British company. This enabled Sri Lankan Government to save colossal amount of foreign exchange while introducing a better-quality passport compared to the previous.
We wish to confirm that, our consortium has never submitted any unsolicited proposal requesting for supply of additional orders for passports since the initial award in 2003. However, Immigration & Emigration Department made requests to us a few times over the past years to provide additional quantities of the same passport, of which we have always fulfilled the request in most cost-effective manner being a responsible corporate citizen. Those Procurement decisions were taken by the Immigration & Emigration Department with proper approval from the Cabinet after following national procurement guidelines. Therefore, we neither have any influence nor involvement in the decision to procure additional quantities of passports.
It is also pertinent to mention that secure documents such as passports and national ID cards by nature consist of many overt and covert security features embedded in its design. The security printing experts of our consortium created these designs for the Sri Lankan passport, therefore, our consortium and the Government of Sri Lanka jointly share the Intellectual Property Rights of such designs. As such, it is only our consortium has the legal rights to produce the current passport unless the Department of Immigration & Emigration introduces a new series of passports with a different security design. Therefore, it is not legally possible for Sri Lankan Government to assign a different contractor to produce the current passport.
It is also pertinent to mention that secure documents such as passports and national ID cards by nature consist of many overt and covert security features embedded in its design. The security printing experts of our consortium created these designs for the Sri Lankan passport, therefore, our consortium and the Government of Sri Lanka jointly share the Intellectual Property Rights of such designs. As such, it is only our consortium has the legal rights to produce the current passport unless the Department of Immigration & Emigration introduces a new series of passports with a different security design. Therefore, it is not legally possible for Sri Lankan Government to assign a different contractor to produce the current passport.
Further, your article refers to the tender for the supply of ID cards to the Department of Registration of Persons too. We wish to place on record that we, EPIC Lanka (Pvt) Ltd was awarded the contract to supply the pre-printed cards for eNIC project by the Department of Registration of Persons through an open, competitive and transparent tender process where our bid carried the lowest evaluated price among the technically responsive bidders. The Price difference between Epic and the second lowest responsive bidder was more than Rs.30 million for a quantity of 1 million. As such Government could save a large sum of money by awarding the tender to the lowest evaluated bidder (Epic).
However, the second lowest bidder challenged the award through a fundamental rights case filed in the supreme court of Sri Lanka (SC F/R 124/2017), which was duly dismissed by the 3-member bench clearly showing that the allegations were baseless. It seems that you have been misled by some party with a malicious intention of using your website to tarnish our reputation.
EPIC Lanka (Pvt) Ltd. is a pioneer in implementing e-Governance and FinTech solutions in Sri Lanka, and functioning as a socially responsible entrepreneurial organization over the past 19 years. Due to our unblemished track record, we have been able to secure continuous contracts from many customers in the region. As of today, Epic provides employment to 250 local talents. In addition, Epic has been awarded with more than 70 national and international accolades including Sri Lanka’s Best Software Company Award at the National Best Quality Software awards (NBQSA) in 2016.
Epic Lanka is the only Sri Lankan Company eligible to bid for tenders of secure documents such as passports and national ID cards in international markets.
In the circumstances, we request that you publish this correction with equal magnitude of publicity, highlighting the above facts.
Sincerely,
Thareendra Kalpage
Chief Operating Officer
EPIC Lanka (Pvt) Ltd
Sincerely,
Thareendra Kalpage
Chief Operating Officer
EPIC Lanka (Pvt) Ltd
Editor's note
