Abu Dhabi: A Dubai resident complained that she went through a 10-month ordeal to get her Emirates ID card renewed.
Delilah D’souza, said she was asked to take fingerprints twice and had to visit a Emirates ID [Emirates Identity Authority] registration centre at least five times to enquire about her card. “Still I did not get my card and my several complaints with the Emirates ID call centre also did not receive any positive reply,” she explained.
Finally, following Gulf News intervention, the card was delivered to her office last week with a large bouquet of flowers.
D’souza said she applied for the renewal of her ID card along with her visa renewal on September 25, 2011 at Emirates ID registration centre at TECOM. She said they took her data, fingerprints and pictures.
Emirates ID had already announced that finger printing is generally not required for ID card renewal but those whose finger prints are not clear on the authority’s system have to take it again.
The complainant said her colleague who applied for the card renewal along with her received the card the next month, so she started enquiring about her card with the Emirates ID call centre but they were of no help.
Then she visited the Emirates ID registration centre at TECOM, which advised her to visit the centre at Al Barsha where she had to go at least five times to follow up with her card, D’souza said. On her second visit on April 2012, she had to take fingerprint and pictures again, she said.
When there was no information about the card she started calling up the Emirates ID call centre but again there was no feedback. Three of her five visits to the Al Barsha centre were at this point which also did not help her. “That time I got totally fed-up and wrote to Gulf News.”
A statement issued by Emirates ID to Gulf News said it apologised to D’souza regarding the ID Card delivery delay.”It appeared after our investigation, that an error of data entry caused a delay in the card production. This mistake occurred at the (typing center) were the customer applied for her ID card renewal.The issue has been solved and the ID Card been sent to the customer," said the statement.
But D’souza said the renewal process was done not at a typing centr but at Emirates ID registration centre. She said whatever error occurred must be at the Emirates ID centre and they should be more professional. Although her comments were brought to the attention of the authority, it stood by its previous statement.
