A Game of Chicken: EIDA vs UAE

A Game of Chicken: EIDA vs UAE

The never ending saga of getting a Emirates ID has Kipp severely unfazed: bring on the fines, the penalties and the ultimatums…we’re ready.

September 15, 2011 3:08 by shafeer

The boy who cried wolf, is the one fable that comes to mind when Kipp thinks about the precious institution that is EIDA and the various threats and deadlines they enjoy issuing.

Earlier this month, EIDA announced plans to fine those who fail to renew or register for their Emirates ID. The fine was a massive Dh20 a day and could go up to the maximum fine of Dh1000 from a rather ambiguous deadline of “mid-October.”

Just how the EIDA would be able to track and fine absconders, you may ask. Well, that’s when we come back to the keyword in this story, see it is all very “ambiguous”. Reports we’ve read said seem to suggest that you’d likely be caught out on not having an Emirates ID when renewing one’s residence visa. Right, because even though EIDA has been proclaiming a link-up with the Emirates ID and the residence visa since the dawn of mankind and still have been unable to link the two processes, be assured that they will be able to get their act together just to fine you.

When Kipp read about these new fines, we saw things a little differently: the annual end of year EIDA shake-up. At the turn of every new year, our dearest friends at EIDA feel the shadow of the new year loom over then, which somehow fuels the need to panic everyone about getting the ID, for which we still currently have no real formal use.

Kipp is not being a cynical old website, but we are just telling it as it is. Year upon year, Kipp has seen the EIDA say “31 December is the Final Final deadline” to get an Emirates ID. And from a distance we have observed the usual chaos: people queue in front of inundated typing centres that have a massive backlog with the sudden rush and make several errors causing applications to be cancelled, passports to be withheld for weeks at a time. Of course, by the time the actual deadline does draw close, EIDA pulls out of this game of Chicken and graciously extends the deadline for another six months to a year.

And so when one in Kipp’s household started to get cold feet about the Dh20 daily fee, we were quick to roll our eyes. Nonetheless, more than three members of Kipp’s happy family trooped off to the nearest EIDA office to get an appointment (which they were told didn’t matter, you could walk in whenever you wished!) and handed in their applications. Kipp’s happy to report that their EIDA application was so far removed from the nightmare-ish torture many have previously reported. There were no lines, no fuss and plenty of free Sulaimani tea.

No sooner had their splendid renditions of the wonderful EIDA application experience reached our ears, than we read this report which stated that the Emirates ID deadline for Dubai’s expats has been pushed back to June 2012.

No, we’re not going to rob ourselves of the satisfaction of saying these four precious words:

We told you so.