The Muqeem Service and Al-Obeikan Company
Year: 2006
Place: Al-Obeikan Library in Riyadh
The Event: The Muqeem service discovers forged visas.
The Spokesman: Mr. Mohamed Abdullah Al Foreih, HR Manager of Al-Obeikan company
The Muqeem service enabled Al-Obeikan Company to discover forged visas, and to avoid financial losses of about 100.000 Riyals.
Mohamed Al Foreih
HR Manager of Al-Obeikan Company
The Challenge:
Ability to know the status of all the employed residents, who might be sponsored by Al-Obeikan Company, and regularly keep any eye on their statuses through the notices of the Muqeem service.
The Action:
Muqeem enables Al-Obeikan to overcome the challenge through linking the employees' affairs with the Electronic records in the General Directorate of Passports.
The Result:
Al-Obeikan Company achieves a 100% match record between their records and the official records.
The Muqeem service enables Al-Obeikan Company to discover forged visas, and to avoid problems the might affect the reputation of the company and avoid financial losses of about 100.000 Riyals.
A Hint:
There is a big gap between the theory and implementation (usually the theory has the upper hand in such gap), but the Muqeen service reversed that rule upside down, to prove that implementation can have the upper hand over theory.
When the "Muqeem" idea was born to existence, its main objective was to find a permanent window for the participant company to allow it to know the data of its resident employees from the records of the Department of Passports, and to give the company immediate notifications when any updates take place in such data.
But when the Muqeem service was launched into effect, it provided participants with many benefits and offered them new tasks that it can do for them, in addition to doing its main job to follow the smallest updates that take place in the data of the residents once such details are recorded in the governmental departments computers, and send such updates, in the same moment, and as is, to all the screens of "Muqeem" that are available 24 hours per day, 7 days per week, to all the companies and corporations that are registered as participants to the service.
The Story
At the same time some thought that participating in Electronic services is just a matter of "Prestige" no more, reality proved that the story has a totally different face, and we can see a part of this face in the story of Al-Obeikan Company with the "Muqeem" service.
Mr. Mohamed Abdullah Al Foreih, HR Manager of Al-Obeikan Company, says: "Since we participated in the Muqeem service, our understanding of the regular procedures for passports transactions increased, as all the bad surprises almost disappeared, and we now do not send any transactions unless we check its status very well from the records of the Department of Passports, and after the transaction is done, we receive an immediate notification that the transaction is finished.
One day, we discovered that these immediate notifications provide a benefit that we did not expect. Such notifications do not only notify us with the procedures that we perform, but also notify us with any (illegal) procedures that are performed by others in our name, without having a permission from us.
This occurred when we received a notification one day that some persons entered the Kingdom using working visas that were supposed to be issued by the company, and as we did not make visas for such a number of persons, we knew on the spot that we are facing a professional forging case, and we had to stop it before things go out of control.
And it was done... On the spot, we spoke with the concerned parties, and clarified the whole situation to them, and the forgers were arrested, and, thanks to Allah only, the problem ended before it really starts."
Mr. Al Foreih added: The "Muqeem' service helped us so much in this case only to avoid losses of about 100.000 Riyals, in addition to avoiding moral losses that are not less at all, if such persons penetrated the groups of the legal residents and started to make illegal actions in the name of the company."
The HR Manager of Al-Obeikan Company, here, recalls a previous time, and says: "Before the Muqeem service, we suffered from similar cases, but we did not discover them until after a late time, and by mere chance, when we ask for a "print" copy of the residents whom the company sponsors. Upon matching, we discovered the existence of names that we do not know, so we had to go through long and complicated set of procedures in order to fix such illegal situations and disclaim the company's responsibility."
Mr. Al Foreih ends the story saying: We regard our participation in the 'Muqeem" service as a matter of leadership in moving towards the complete E-government that represents the future of transactions in the kingdom. For this reason, we are keen on following all the options that are innovated by the service and make use of them to the maximum. Among the most recent options of this service are the Electronic Return Visa, which gave us the ability to issue a visa from the company's location, at any time, day or night, without any need to review any passports at all. And we already issued dozens of visas till now, in a high level of security that exceeds the levels of security provided by paper transactions.