Dubai: A day after the UAE temporarily suspended the good conduct certificate rule for work permits, hundreds of company representatives rushed to submit applications pending due to the rule that had become mandatory on February 4.
The UAE government on Sunday put on hold the decision to make good conduct certificates mandatory for expats seeking work permits to get employment visas in the country until further notice.
The Ministry of Human Resources and Emiratisation issued a circular in this regard to all the Tasheel service centres accepting work permit applications while the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation sent out a “note verbale” to foreign diplomatic missions.
The General Directorate of Residency and Foreign Affairs in Dubai and the Jebel Ali Free Zone Authority also confirmed on Monday that visa applicants will not be required to present certificate of good conduct until further notice.
As news spread that job applicants need not submit police clearance documents for UAE visas for the time being, PROs and other representatives of private companies made a beeline for the Tasheel centres.
Many Tasheel centres reported huge turnout of customers, with some receiving more than 300 additional applications than in the previous weeks after the new rule had come into force. In some centres, the officials had to stop issuing tokens to control the rush, officials confirmed to Gulf News.
“PROs and company representatives can process up to five applications using one token. Many were taking four or five tokens today. We had to suspend the token system to control the crowd earlier today,” said one official at the Tasheel centre in Al Khail Mall, Al Quoz.
The situation was similar in many other centres as well, officials said.
“People are relieved that the rule has been suspended. But they are worried when it will be implemented again as there was no time frame given for the postponement of the rule. So they are pushing all the applications as soon as possible,” said an official at Tasheel Centre in Al Mamzar.
Nino Dimaandal, a catering company’s PRO, said he rushed to push the pending applications as those candidates had not secured good conduct certificates from their countries.
“I was planning to submit them after two weeks if they get the certificate by then. Now that the rule is changed, I wanted to push them soon. We don’t know for how long the rule will remain the same,” he said.
While several Gulf News readers welcomed the move on our social media channels, some also lamented that they had already shelled out a lot of money and spent many days running around for securing the police clearance certificates from their countries.
Some readers said it had been particularly difficult for them to secure the police clearance certificates as they live far away from the cities where the departments concerned are located.
Diplomatic missions in the UAE have also welcomed the move citing that this would give more time to streamline the procedures for helping expat job seekers in the UAE.
