Corruption And Confusion In Thai Smart Card Fiasco

[webfact]

SPECIAL

Corruption and confusion in 'Smart Card' fiasco

By Special report

The Nation

After eight years of delay and the outlay of billions of baht, the "Smart Card" project to provide all Thais with a modern ID card has become bogged down in a corruption-plagued scandal.

BANGKOK: -- The project was started by the Thaksin Shinawatra government in 2004, but no investigation has ever been ordered into why Bt7.91 billion was approved for 64 million identity cards for all Thais, which were wracked with problems and divided into three lots over the past five to six years.

Only the first 12 million cards were issued completely in the first lot in 2004, after Bt888 million out of a total Bt1.67 billion was approved. These cards cost Bt74 apiece after two other bid lots were abolished following allegations of corruption.

No details are immediately available as to where the remaining half of this initial government outlay has gone.

Of a total of 26 million cards sought in the second lot at a bidding price of Bt962 million, half were awarded to IRC HST Joint Venture for Bt486.8 million, or Bt37.45 apiece. However, a complaint was lodged with the ICT Ministry, which later aborted the bid, and reopened it in 2007.

The 2007 auction sought a full 26 million cards, and ended in a Bt920-million deal awarded to VSK Joint Venture in July that year, which priced the cards at Bt35 apiece.

Bidding for a third lot - 26 million cards -was opened in June 2009. VK Joint Venture won the Bt902-million contract, which required new conditions set up by the Department of Provincial Administration (DOPA). These included new designs and harder-to-crack anti-forgery features.

The third-lot cards, called IE model, were embedded with IC Chip NXP (Model P5CD080), which offers 80kb of memory. That was greater than that issued in first and second lots. This version also featured a Card Operating System - Model JCOP V 2.4.1, which complied with Global Platform version 2.1.1 requirements.

Five days after Cabinet approved the deal, on December 11 last year, then DOPA director-general Wongsak Sawasdiphanich received an Interior Ministry document asking DOPA to reconsider the contract it had just awarded.

Wongsak set up two panels to study the ministry directive. They concluded that the project should proceed further with the IE model - or for the current "partly-smart" version to be dusted off. But the vote by both panels to use a "non-smart" version was not unanimous.

On March 9 this year, the ICT ministry questioned the DOPA decision and asked for it to re-approve the IE model.

DOPA later backtracked and approved the IE model. But all agencies never explained their decisions or the reasons for their about-turns.

The inaction of all agencies involved over the issue means that anyone applying for ID cards is given a "yellow paper" permit as a temporary substitute for actual cards, like in the old days when the normal procedure for issuing an ID card took 15 days.

People seeking to obtain ID cards are not even issued the third-generation "non-smart" cards, because district officers are not sure what cards they should issue if people apply for a new card or seek to renew one that has expired.

After DOPA approved the IE model, the ICT Ministry handed 600,000 cards to the department. But days after receiving the first million cards from the ministry, DOPA rejected them all on June 14. It said the IE model violated two conditions - the front of the cards has red microtext laid across it, and the back of the card does not feature the map of Thailand.

This type of technical problem occurred previously when DOPA rejected the first six million cards many years ago - because they could not be used by the department's computer. The problem ended when Thaksin ordered DOPA to accept all cards.

It remains to be seen how the problem will be tackled this time. It may eventually be dealt with by Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva, who needs to resolve problems between the Interior Ministry and the ICT Ministry.

-- The Nation 2010-07-06

[Musongman]

The Thai govt. could not organise a shit-fight at a sewage farm let alone a new national ID card issue!!

[Garry]

The Thai govt. could not organise a shit-fight at a sewage farm let alone a new national ID card issue!!

[singa-traz]

The main issue is that they have not agreed on who will milk the cow!

[Pib]

The Thai govt. could not organize a shit-fight at a sewage farm let alone a new national ID card issue!!

No, I think they could organize the fight, but there would probably be a corruption scandal over ticket sales.

[Rucharee]

These cards are Thaksin problems.

Please do not blame Mark, he is a good man with no corruption.

[kmj]

These cards are Thaksin problems.

Please do not blame Mark, he is a good man with no corruption.

are the schools on holiday today?

[march]

Who could have possibly imagined that corruption would be a concern after the very first Smart Card was issued:

[TheWalkingMan]

They should have just outsourced the job to Singapore.

TheWalkingMan

[Valentine]

I wonder if there are any government projects that are not plagued by corruption. Just imagine how rich this country could be if they even just cut corruption in half & then spread it around to those truly in need. Unfortunately those who benefit from large scale corruption are usually quite obscenely wealthy anyway.

[laocowboy2]

The Thai govt. could not organise a shit-fight at a sewage farm let alone a new national ID card issue!!

Shock! Horror! Corruption in Thailand! Whoever heard of that? Yawn...... The real surprise would be a government deal that was actually straight.

[sting123]

useless post, so better to be deleted

Edited July 6, 2010 by sting123

[laocowboy2]

The main issue is that they have not agreed on who will milk the cow!

From this "No details are immediately available as to where the remaining half of this initial government outlay has gone" it sounds to me as if the cow has been pretty well milked already.

Perhaps they will make it a question in this year's geography paper - Switzerland? Singapore? .

[asiawatcher]

The project was started by the Thaksin Shinawatra government in 2004, but no investigation has ever been ordered into why .....

Does anyone really need to read further?

[thaibkk]

thailand, it really does not amaze me anymore, this is a banana republic

[Robby nz]

Another example of the piles of dung left over from previous administrations.

Cant expect everything to be sorted quickly, no matter how much will there is now.

Our red shirt friends are only making the process more difficult, haveing had to and still have to deal with them as well as the previous yellows is only slowing things down.

Probably take more than the next govt after the election to get things on track, however if the wrong party gets in power and Mr T is brought back the 'COW' as someone put it, would be milked to a shadow.

[Pushit]

The graft was paid years ago, the current brough-ha-ha is just the fallout and will be expected to blow over then all the officials involved can get back to working on their current scam.

[Foggy Bottom]

Tut tut The Nation - failed maths 101 did we?

2010 - 2004 = 8 years according to the reporter.

2010 - 2004 = 6 when I was at school .... hang on, I'll just take my socks off and double check the sums on that.

[Rucharee]

I wonder if there are any government projects that are not plagued by corruption. Just imagine how rich this country could be if they even just cut corruption in half & then spread it around to those truly in need. Unfortunately those who benefit from large scale corruption are usually quite obscenely wealthy anyway.

Yes. The GT200 project was not plagued by corruption.

Have you heard of another being arrested, not to be mention, charged, in the GT200 purchase scandal?

This proves that the GT200 project is super clean with no corruption.

Bravo Mark, you are the best.

[Soutpeel]

I wonder if there are any government projects that are not plagued by corruption. Just imagine how rich this country could be if they even just cut corruption in half & then spread it around to those truly in need. Unfortunately those who benefit from large scale corruption are usually quite obscenely wealthy anyway.

Is it any worse than the ID card fiasco in the UK.....millions of pounds spent on a system by Labour, which in all probability will never see the light of day under the Conservatives....at least Thailand got some cards issued, I wonder how many people got kick backs in the UK ?

Edited July 6, 2010 by Soutpeel

[TAWP]

I wonder if there are any government projects that are not plagued by corruption. Just imagine how rich this country could be if they even just cut corruption in half & then spread it around to those truly in need. Unfortunately those who benefit from large scale corruption are usually quite obscenely wealthy anyway.

Yes. The GT200 project was not plagued by corruption.

Have you heard of another being arrested, not to be mention, charged, in the GT200 purchase scandal?

This proves that the GT200 project is super clean with no corruption.

Bravo Mark, you are the best.

It wasn't.

It was plagued with ignorance, silly notion of face and inherit inability to accept responsibility and acceptance of defeat.

[MegaMik]

One thing to keep in mind is the plethora of backend system to handle this transformation for Thai authorities.

It's not an easy taks to handle when there's no standard set.

But to reject cards because of their prints is just according to Thai's protection of Thailand (keep Thais as Thais, ignorant and hail to their own country above others) , no map of a country isn't an enough reason to reject cards in any other country.

Thailand do have a real issue though, what to do with the C-chip when only one authority can read it?

Police can't do it, customes can't, tax authorities can't, banks can't, so why use chips at all? Maybe there will be some coordination in the furure but then they are stuck with explicitly that system.

I would like to see all the departments go together and accept one of them and conform their routines to that one.

But then, major point, no one can benefit from it.

My preminitaions are that none of the existing standards will be accepeted in every department, authority in Thailand.

Too easy to track people and their doing then.

They have their ID number on their cards that will be in 10-15 years the only way to track their citizens.

Don't blame the previous administrations, this will be an issue with any administration in the future as long as they don't will conform to one standard, easily done though, just use US, Japanese or EU systems and they are all set.

[yesdavy]

These cards are Thaksin problems.

Please do not blame Mark, he is a good man with no corruption.

are the schools on holiday today?

LOL

[yesdavy]

thailand, it really does not amaze me anymore, this is a banana republic

I'll give ya the banana, but republic? That's a stretch.

[yesdavy]

The main issue is that they have not agreed on who will milk the cow!

Actually, they rejected the cow and have requested a bull.

[kuffki]

Do not know why it makes the news or why it is such a big deal

Everything in Thailand is done through back handers.

Clearly not all have made enough yet, so why not keep milking the cow

No one will be punished, and no money will be recovered. May be and i really doubt it, but they may point a finger at some company for failing to make the right color or something along the lines

[givenall]

The main issue is that they have not agreed on who will milk the cow!

Another sign that Thaksin and his friends used Thai treasury as their own and they bought votes and favor to enhance their own statures. ANd still continues

[landofthefree]

These cards are Thaksin problems.

Please do not blame Mark, he is a good man with no corruption.

:cheesy: Khun Rucharee thanks for making me laugh out loud!

[surangw]

corruption trumps confusion every time

[sharking]

corruption in Thailand?????? never:lol: