A Federal National Council committee has recommended that identity cards be issued only to Emiratis only. Not to include the general expatriate population of UAE. The Emirates Identity Authority (EIDA) have been struggling its efforts to issue cards to all of the five million population that is currently and legally living inside the UAE. Thus came this recommendation that the program shall be applied just for all the national citizens instead.
There had been a surmountable panic in the UAE this past few months because of the mandatory ID system that will supposedly contain all the individuals personal information. It was said that failure to compliance would result to salary bank accounts being freezed among other sanctions.
Just recently came this news about the program to be altered. The FNC committee has suggested that the Government should only issue Labor Cards to foreign workers and individuals living in the country for an expireable two years as reported in the local news paper, the National last Thursday.
According to the paper, the committee members wrote a brief report regarding the change of plan to push the ID program. To wit:
"The goal is to have a comprehensive database about those who work in the country. The ID card should only be given to citizens," said Mohammed al Zaabi, a member of the specialised labour committee.
The FNC is expected to take up the recommendation at its next meeting in January. If the FNC, which is an advisory body, passes the committee recommendation, it will be submitted to the Cabinet. They will then decide whether to adopt it or not.
Now this is important, EIDA on Tuesday released a new definitive time guideline in a bid to avoid confusion for ID card registration in the UAE during 2009. UAE residents and professionals working in the government and private sectors will have until Feb. 28, 2009 to apply for the card, it said.
According to the schedule, residents working in the federal and local government sector, and professional residents including their family members can register for the new national ID card from this month to the
end of February.
This news is still not certain since the issue is at its proposal period only so lets be guided accordingly.
No comments:
Post a Comment