The State Housing Construction Agency (MIDA), established in 2016, has so far conducted several sales of discounted apartments. The apartments at the agency's disposal are sold electronically through the "Discounted Apartment" system on the "Electronic Government" portal. The latest sale took place on December 3.
MIDA’s apartments always sell out in the blink of an eye. Some users complain about this. According to them, the process happens so quickly that there is no time to participate in the sale.
Some say that the electronic system does not always work properly, and when the sale starts, due to the high number of applicants, the system crashes instantly, resulting in many people being left out of the process due to technical errors.
For this reason, there are suggestions to change the form of selling discounted apartments, for example, to hold the sales not electronically but through live lottery draws.
Is it necessary to change the procedures for putting apartments at MIDA’s disposal up for sale and to shift the sales from electronic format to live format?
In a statement to Medianews.az on the subject, the Chairman of the Azerbaijan Information and Communication Technology Industry Association, Elvin Abbasov, stated that technological malfunctions are observed in every sale of MIDA’s discounted apartments: “According to the data, when the sale of apartments started on November 3, some people could not access the system in the first few seconds. After a very short period of 21 seconds, the system indicated that the sale of the apartments was over. This process has been going on in the same way for years.
It is felt that MIDA has difficulties in ensuring citizen satisfaction in this process. Although the agency pursues technological progress, tries to use the latest technologies, and attempts to eliminate malfunctions, it seems unable to achieve this adequately.”
E. Abbasov emphasized that the digital lottery mechanism applied in MIDA’s apartment selection is not sufficiently effective against external interventions and bots: “The consecutive public dissatisfaction caused by the system’s weakness and the inability to prevent rapid selection sharply increase the risk of the institution losing society’s trust. Under these circumstances, alongside digital security measures, it becomes a necessity for MIDA to seriously consider applying manual (traditional) or hybrid solutions in the lottery process to restore transparency. It would be better for MIDA to also consider alternative sales methods. If purely electronic sales do not fully satisfy society and many remain dissatisfied, then a hybrid approach can be utilized—that is, selling some apartments electronically and some using traditional methods.”
E. Abbasov noted that although the apartment selection process conducted by MIDA on December 3 was carried out under the supervision of important government bodies according to official information, various cyberattack attempts were observed during the process: “This fact confirms the critical opinions I have previously expressed about the manipulation of the MIDA system. In any digitalization, since databases and codes are under the control of the institution, there is always a risk of external persons trying to manipulate the system through bots or automated scripts. Although security mechanisms prevent these attempts promptly, the selection of the first apartment in the 21st second still indicates the system’s weakness regarding speed and unauthorized intervention. This shows that dissatisfaction with digitalization is natural and that the fight against unethical activities carried out without the human factor continues.”
In response to these threats, after the selection was completed, MIDA felt the need to demonstrate additional security measures through special software to prevent faster selections. This need forms the basis of my criticism that “MIDA programmers cannot build the system in a form that cannot be manipulated.” Instead of directing digitalization efforts to sensitive areas like lotteries, the institution should prioritize the digitalization of other administrative services where full transparency is guaranteed. As in international practice, in cases where dissatisfaction and manipulation attempts are high, replacing the digital lottery with manual (traditional) methods or applying a hybrid model can be a more sincere and reliable solution.”
According to E. Abbasov, the traditional method even appears more transparent and could relatively reduce public dissatisfaction: “Overall, I can say that many institutions in Azerbaijan are still on the path of hybrid digitalization. That is, although they move toward digitalization, they keep alternative services active. MIDA, however, does not provide space for alternative services. The agency follows purely digitalization.
In fact, this is a good point. But in any case, the opinion of society must be taken into account. MIDA focuses on a specific group. But in the current form, apartment sales do not reach the set goal. For example, among those entitled to purchase discounted apartments, there may be people whose digital skills are not fully developed. Therefore, MIDA should use alternative sales methods and benefit from different methods to fully reach the target with the discounted apartments at its disposal.”
Nailə Qasımova,
