DUBAI, 12 December 2006 — It has been six months since Arab News reported on Tasdeeq or the Electronic Certification and Authentication System that was to push e-government forward in the Kingdom. The system was to replace the onerous manual certification and authentication of documents by the Saudi chambers of commerce and industry.
Designed, implemented and integrated by the House of Development (HOD), a Saudi company, Tasdeeq uses the latest trusted and secure technologies in conjunction with the Internet. The system allows members of the Saudi chambers of commerce and industry to certify their documents online at anytime, from anywhere without going to the chamber’s offices. The system also enables chamber members to authorize other parties to print their certified documents at anytime from anywhere. And document issuance is just half the benefit of the new system. In a leap forward from a security standpoint, Tasdeeq provides recipients of the certified documents with an easy way to verify that the documents are free from fraud.
The whole system sounds great. So why hasn’t Tasdeeq been implemented widely by now? It turns out that even e-government can become wrapped up in real-world red tape.
At GITEX, Arab News met up with the team from HOD (www.hod.com.sa). They were demonstrating their products to an international audience at the trade show as part of the Oracle World vendors. HOD’s CEO Mohammed A. Geoffrey and GM Saleh Bogary were marketing the wide array of solutions that HOD has created to enable smoother work flow with greater security in this digital age. One of the solutions that they were presenting was Tasdeeq, the Electronic Certification and Authentication (EC&A) System. Surprised that the system was being promoted for use abroad, when it hasn’t yet been brought into wide use in Saudi Arabia, Arab News asked Geoffrey to explain what was going on.
“Tasdeeq is perfect,” Goeffrey said. “The project was moving forward well with the Saudi chambers until we got tied up with red tape. Unfortunately, for the entire Saudi business community we have been unable to cut through that red tape and so the project is stymied.”
How could a project that was implemented under a decree from the Ministry of Commerce and Industry and was supposed to radically enable the Saudi business community, become a victim of internal government bickering? It all comes down to scanners that cost SR200.
“The paper documents issued under Tasdeeq at the Saudi chambers must be authenticated when they are presented to various government agencies,” said Geoffrey. “To do the authentication, the staff of the government agency receiving the document must scan the document into the system. Actually, the essential part of the document is the 2D barcode that is printed on the certified documents. After the document is scanned, then Tasdeeq can verify that it is authentic.”
Sounds simple, so what’s the problem?
“The problem is that there are 400 different government offices all over the Kingdom that use the documents and many of the agencies don’t have scanners. The government agencies want the Saudi chambers to purchase the scanners and provide them to all the government offices. The Saudi chambers don’t view this as their responsibility. Without the ability for the government offices to authenticate the documents, the documents issued under Tasdeeq are useless. I believe the problem is more than the lack of scanners, however. The difficulties in implementing this project show that there needs to be a cultural change within the bureaucracy for e-government to succeed.”
There’s been a lot of talk lately about e-government in Saudi Arabia. When it is seen that a major initiative such as the Electronic Certification and Authentication System at the Saudi chambers is halted due to government agencies’ unwillingness to purchase SR200 scanners, this clearly demonstrates that e-government in the Kingdom is more virtual than reality.
