Ministry to shut down typing centres

Dubai: Typing centres across the country will be forced to shut down in the near future giving place to comprehensive service centres to be run solely by Emiratis, a senior official from the Ministry of Labour said.

Humaid Bin Deemas, acting Director-General at the Ministry of Labour, said all typing centres that offer to public labour ministry services would be closed soon.

"We have more than 5,000 typing centres in the country and we have noticed that some of them are abusing the ministry's service in [one] way or another. So we decided to shut them all down," he said.

Bin Deemas added that comprehensive services centres will be allowed to open instead.

"Those centres must be owned by Emiratis and all its employees must be Emiratis. Foreigners will not be allowed to run such centres," he said.

He said the new centres will be private centres and will have nothing to do with the ministry. However, the fees paid by public for any transaction will be shared between the centre and the ministry.

"Those centres will type any transaction, will collect the fees and will do all needed jobs for [the] public related to work. But those centres will have nothing to do with approving or not approving any work permit," he said.

Bin Deemas said the work of typing offices started ten years ago.

He said the ministry was now looking to develop the services offered to the public through establishing those centres.

"We will use those new centres as part of the ministry's Emiratisation policy. The owners and all the employees must be Emiratis. That will open job opportunities to people here," he said.

Monitoring

Bin Deemas said inspectors from the ministry will monitor such centres.

"We have started this service in Ajman as a centre called ‘Istimarat' [which has] already opened and we shut down the other typing centres," he said.

He added that another centre had also opened in Umm Al Quwain. The new centres, which the ministry will support, must offer the public high-quality services.

"All other government departments are welcomed to be part of those centres. If any department wants its services to be offered through such centres, the door will be open for them," he said.

Bin Deemas said more than 56 centres were closed in Ajman.

"In the past, some typing centres used to forge our documents and they used to charge [the] public more than the needed charges for any transactions," he said.

He said the ministry would stop such practices.

"Some of those who work at typing centres are not well trained... Now the ministry will keep an eye on its services offered to [the] public through those centres," he said.