| Kippreport.com

UAE’s next mission impossible: get an ID card

December 23, 2010 2:33 by Eva Fernandes

Dr Ali Al Khoury, Director General of Eida told Gulf News, “We rectified the 40,000 applications so far by contacting the applicants [in required cases] but it was surprising to find that 10,000 applicants had given wrong phone numbers.” What’s become of the other 40,000? Your guess is as good as ours.

With the backlog of applications in typing centers dramatically increasing, centers are taking to keeping the passports of applicants despite warnings that individuals should be wary of such practices. Although we last reported having to leave our passport at the center for five days, one of Kipp’s co-workers was asked to leave her passport at such a center for an incredible 45 days.

As the saga of the quest for an ID continues, some are taking to camping outside the centers overnight while others are travelling across the Emirates to find a center that will process them. Philip M told Emirates 24|7 that he has been travelling the lengths of Dubai, Sharjah and Umm Al Quwain in search of a center that was accepting applications: “Finally someone told me a typing centre in Ajman was accepting last minute applications provided we pay an extra amount of Dh60 for each application. I finally submitted all the five passports [presumably for his family] by paying an additional amount of Dh300 (…) at the end of the day typing centres have made a lot of money.”

As the New Year approaches and the looming deadline seems more and more unrealistic, Kipp can only hope that the EIDA’s New Year’s resolution will include a new, thorough administrative system. Alternatively, they could just give up on the whole thing.

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