UAE | Government

No extension plan for expatriates who do not register for identity card

Although 90 per cent of expatriate professionals are yet to register, Emirates Identity Authority does not have any plan to extend the deadline.

  • By Binsal Abdul Kader, Staff Reporter
  • Published: 23:29 November 17, 2008
  • Gulf News

  • Registration is underway at the Emirates Identity Authority mobile service unit at the Al Nisr Group headquarters in Dubai on Sunday.
  • Image Credit: Hadrian Hernandez/ Gulf News

Abu Dhabi: Although 90 per cent of expatriate professionals are yet to register for the Identity Card before the December 31 deadline, Emirates Identity Authority (EIDA) does not have any plan to extend the deadline, a senior official told Gulf News on Monday.

Approximately 60,000 of the estimated 600,000 expatriate professionals have registered so far, said Thamer Rashid Al Qasimi, Planning Director and Project Management Director at the Emirates Identity Authority (EIDA).

"Although no official number of expatriate professionals is available, it is estimated to be approximately about 600,000 and just 10 per cent have completed the registration," he said.

Transaction

"We cannot extend the deadline or say that non- registration before deadline will not attract any problems," said Al Qasimi.

He reiterated that although EIDA does not have the authority to take punitive measures like freezing bank accounts of non-registered residents, government or central bank can take any such measures as per the existing law.

"The cabinet decision number 201 of 2007 September...stipulates that Emirates ID will be the only valid identification document for Emiratis for all official transactions from January 2009 and for expatriates from 2010. But expatriates who registered for national ID, it will be the only valid identification document for all purposes," he said.

To support the efforts of EIDA, any government or private organisation can demand Emirates ID from expatriate professionals after December 31 and some institutions have communicated the same to EIDA, said the official.

"Although we know that it is difficult to finish the registration of more than 500,000 expat professionals before the deadline, we cannot do anything now. People delayed it even though the newspapers published the information on expat registration on July 2, 2008," said Al Qasimi.

He said EIDA would take all steps to ease the pressure and would also take appropriate steps if registration is not finished by December end.

Expiry date: Visa validity

All expat professionals to register before deadline irrespective of their validity period of visa.

The official clarified that all expatriate professionals (having a degree) have to register before the deadline irrespective of the validity period of their visa. "If your visa expires soon and you postpone your registration, it is at your risk, EIDA never suggests so," said Al Qasimi.

"Our advice to such people is to finish the registration now because they can easily do the renewal after the renewal of their visa. There will be separate queue for renewal of ID and it takes a few minutes."

End to problems in sight

The problems facing residents who want to access application forms for registration of National ID will end on Tuesday, Thamer Rashad Al Qasimi, Planning Director and Project Management Director at the Emirates Identity Authority (EIDA) told Gulf News.

"The software for 'pre-application registration' to replace online application will be ready by today evening," he said.

"It will be available on our website and we will also send it to the organisations who offered to host it on their websites, following a Gulf News report yesterday," he said.

Many government departments and private organisations sent email requests after reading the Gulf News report, said Al Qasimi.

But he said it may take three to four days to produce free CDs of the software to distribute at EIDA centres.

"We expect that people who collect a free CD of software or download it from any website, once it is ready, can distribute it to their friends so that everybody will have an access to 'pre application registration'," he said.

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