Datasonic has been the sole provider of passport solutions to the immigration department since 2016 and the sole provider of MyKads to the national registration department since 2012.

In a filing with Bursa Malaysia today, the group said the contract extensions were for a six-month period from Dec 1, 2023 to May 31, 2024.

The contract extensions are valued at RM60.20 million for the supply of passport chips, RM25.33 million for the supply of passport documents and RM49.43 million for the supply of polycarbonate biodata pages.

Datasonic also said it received a RM28.69 million letter of award from the home ministry for the supply of MyKad, MyTentera, MyPOCA raw cards and consumables to the national registration department for a six-month period from Dec 1, 2023 to May 31, 2024.

The group’s contracts were cast in the spotlight last March when home minister Saifuddin Nasution Ismail revealed that the company secured RM1.1 billion over the years from the home ministry via direct negotiations.

He said seven of the nine contracts Datasonic procured from the home ministry were through “direct negotiations”, including the passport chip supply contract.

However, the company said most of the contracts were initially awarded through open tender. It said due to the nature of the project, going through a long tender process “might not have been effective and timely”.

“Therefore, we were engaged through a direct negotiation process. It has been a common practice that our price negotiations always resulted in a 5% to 10% reduction,” Datasonic said at the time.