By: Fatou Krubally
The Edward Francis Small Centre for Rights and Justice (EFSCRJ) has called on the Government to explain recent changes to passport pricing and document production contracts, urging full transparency and accountability.
The centre’s demands came hot on the heels of reports that the cost of the national passport is set to rise from D3060 to D5100 by May 1, 2025, alongside a plan to decentralize passport services.
“We welcome the decentralization of passport services; however, we are concerned about the increased cost and the lengthy duration of the passport validity,” the statement read.
EFSCRJ pointed to the history of Gambian passport production as a basis for its concerns. The Government had previously produced biometric passports locally at the Immigration Department under the GAMBIS system, until 2013 when it entered a 15-year contract with Spanish company Zetes under a Build, Operate and Transfer (BOT) arrangement. Zetes subsequently subcontracted the project to its so-called local partner, Africard, with the first biometric passport delivered in December 2013.
The organization noted that neither Africard’s offices nor website could be located, and that the GAMBIS system is absent from both the Immigration Department and the Ministry of Interior websites. Meanwhile, additional contracts have surfaced: one with Securiport, which operates at the airport, and another with Ghanaian firm Margins Group to produce national documents. EFSCRJ questioned why the Government entered a 2019 contract with Securiport when Zetes had promised the provision of an “eGate” at the airport border.
The Auditor General’s review of the Securiport contract in 2020, which deemed the contract illegal as it was an unsolicited proposal, further fuels the demand for answers.
In addition, the centre highlighted Japan’s multimillion-dollar funding in 2024 for a border management project that included a $2.2 million border post, calling for clarity on the scope and interconnection among all these contracts, namely those with Zetes/Africard, Securiport, Margins Group, the Japanese support project, and the pre-2014 GAMBIS system.
EFSCRJ insists that the passport fee increase and five-year validity period be re-examined, maintaining that D5100 is unjustifiably high, and argues for extending the passport validity from five to ten years. The centre urged the Government to nationalize the production of national documents and rebuild the GAMBIS system to enhance transparency, ensure security, and prevent economic loss due to corruption.
“2025 is poised to be a year of transparency and accountability,” EFSCRJ concludes.
