KATHMANDU, Sept 14: The government has requested Nepal Rastra Bank to issue letter of credit (LC) on credit facility to pay Oberthur Technologies for receiving the first lot of machine readable passports (MRPs), after budget shortage threatened to affect timely delivery of the high-tech passports.
Ministry of Finance (MoF) wrote a letter to this connection to the central bank on Monday after the France-based security printer sought payment assurance for delivering the first lot of MRPs.
“We have requested the central bank to issue LC with a margin of up to 10 percent,” Finance Secretary Rameshwore Prasad Khanal told Republica.
As per the request, the central bank will need to issue LC of Rs 100 million on credit. The government will repay the amount once the budget for the current fiscal year is announced.
The officials at Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MoFA) said the arrangement will enable them receive the MRPs on schedule.
Going by the agreement that MoFA signed with Oberthur, the security printer is required to supply 350,000 units of general MRPs, 15,000 official, 10,000 diplomatic and 15,000 units of travel documents within 70 days from the date of signing the agreement. The agreement was signed on August 27.
A source told Republica that the government sought the central bank´s support on the case after inadequate budget in the absence of full-fledged budget looked to affect payment to Oberthur.
Selected through competitive bidding, the French security printer will supply a minimum of 3.4 million to maximum 4.6 million MRP booklets in the next five years. The French firm will supply each booklet at a cost of $3.59. The total cost of the project will range between approximately $12.20 million and $16.51.
http://www.myrepublica.com/portal/index.php?action=news_details&news_id=23279
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