NEWS FROM THE UAE
SOURCE : THE NATIONAL
New rules bring rush for ID cards
ABU DHABI - MAY 05: Crowds packed ID card registration centres for a second day yesterday as news spread that it is now mandatory for drivers who want to apply for a licence or register a vehicle.
The surge in applications comes after the number of ID-card holders remained flat at 1.8 million for two months, despite a lengthy publicity campaign.
When the new rules came into effect on Sunday, massive queues began to build up at the registration centres. Some applicants had to wait for up to five hours.
Dr Ali al Khouri, deputy head of the higher committee at the Emirates ID Authority, said: “We’ve been following the motivation approach in encouraging people to register, but that did not work, so now we have to follow enforcement procedures.
“The reason we went with the traffic department first is because it is one of the departments that everybody uses on a daily basis.”
Dr al Khouri said he hoped that making the cards mandatory for nearly every major transaction in the UAE, including banking, would encourage even more residents to sign up. By the end of the year, it will be mandatory for any naturalisation and residency paperwork, including visas.
He predicted that about 10,000 people a day would register once the card is needed for government transactions.
The authority announced last autumn that residency permits, labour cards and the national ID card would be merged into one card – and a single application process – beginning in July.
Other government departments will follow in making the cards mandatory, Dr al Khouri said, although he would not provide details or a time frame.
The most far-reaching step might be requiring bank customers to produce ID cards.
Dr al Khoury said the banking sector would be among the bodies that benefit the most from national IDs, as bank security breaches pose a threat to all countries.
“For example, someone can take a loan from the bank using a certain passport, and then leave the country and come back with a different passport,” he said.
“But when we require him to present the ID card for banking services, there will be no multiple identity or fraud in that regard.”
The ID card requirements were first rolled out last year in the Northern Emirates. In November, the Ministry of Interior announced that Emiratis and expatriates in Ras al Khaimah, Ajman, Fujairah and Umm al Qaiwain would not be able to use licence and registration services without an ID card.
“We believe that to make the registration much more effective, we need to link it to services,” Dr al Khouri said at the time.
The link to the naturalisation and residency programme will begin with a new centre in Musaffah, which should open by the end of the year.
After that, another centre will be built in the capital, near the Preventive Medicine Centres.
The final step is to modify all 25 existing Preventive Medicine Centres to serve as registration centres as well.
A bigger registration centre, with 40 registration devices, will also be built in a “strategic” location in Abu Dhabi city, Dr al Khouri said.
Five mobile registration centres will serve people in rural areas or those who find it difficult to go to a registration centre, such as those with special needs and the elderly.
In March, the EIDA announced new strategies that were supposed to reduce the registration process to five minutes, but Dr al Khouri admitted yesterday that this had not happened.
“We have to be realistic, some employees are still new to this, and even after training it will take them a minimum of 10 minutes to process,” he said.
Cool and windy weather to continue
UAE - MAY 05: Cool and windy weather will continue for at least another two days, forecasters say.
Meteorologists blamed yesterday’s blustery conditions on the transition from winter to summer, with a spokesman for the National Centre for Meteorology and Seismology saying: “This is the time of year when the weather cannot make up its mind.
“We are having extreme highs and lows of temperature; it peaked at 46°C in some areas of the country just a few days ago, and today’s maximum peak recorded is 40°C, and only 34°C in Abu Dhabi, so the range is significant.”
The temperature could go as low as 23°C in some areas, he said.
The strong winds are being nourished by clouds and rain travelling from Saudi Arabia towards Iran.
“Winds are expected to gain strength in some areas, causing a lot of dust and sand, and generating high waves in the Arabian Gulf,” the spokesman said.
North-easterly winds of up to 25 kph are likely to pull up dust in open areas, leading to low visibility. There is also a chance of light rain.
The operators of hot air balloon tours have suspended trips until the weather calms down.
Amigos Balloon Company, operating in Dubai and Al Ain, said it was not taking any bookings for the next few days. “We do not fly if wind speed is above 11 knots, so more than 11 kph,” said a spokeswoman. “We are careful to check weather conditions before confirming any of our balloon flights.”
Balloon Adventures Emirates, which also operates Balloon Adventures Dubai, is still suspended from operating while investigators look into its fatal April 23 crash, for which high winds are being investigated as a possible cause.
Building firm abandons 1,000 in camp without water or power
Workers for Atlantic Emirates Group at their labour camp in Sharjah yesterday - The National
SHARJAH - MAY 05: More than 1,000 labourers have been fending for themselves in their Sharjah labour camps without electricity or running water, abandoned by an employer who they say stopped paying them six months ago.
The employees of Atlantic Emirates Group, a Dubai-based umbrella company, live in three labour camps and have not worked in the two months since the managing director of the company left the country for India.
They claim they were not paid for at least four months before their employer decamped.
“It was not unusual for us to be paid after two months of work,” said Sunil Challil, an electrician who has worked with the group for five years. “So we waited but after we stopped working completely, we got worried.”
According to the company’s website, the enterprise had several businesses in Abu Dhabi, Dubai and Sharjah, including real estate management, construction, engineering, securities and cleaning services.
The company also had businesses in India, including travel services, plantations and a stone-crushing unit in Kerala.
Of the company’s 1,400 workers, about 800 are Indians; the rest are from Bangladesh and Pakistan. Officials from the Ministry of Labour have visited the camps several times since March, when the workers lodged a complaint, to determine the men’s travel plans.
On April 18, the ministry sent home 115 Bangladeshis and Pakistanis. Another 30 workers from India were sent home yesterday.
The Indian Consulate said the Ministry of Labour was arranging to get the labourers as much of their back pay as possible.
Sanjay Verma, the Indian consul general in Dubai, has been in touch with the company to ensure the workers are paid and returned home.
“The impression we got is that things are not well with the company,” Mr Verma said. “The first responsibility to the workers is of the company. It’s only when they completely fail that we step in. We are so far convinced that the company can keep up its commitments.”
The camps, which are in the Sharjah industrial area, have been without electricity and water for a month because the company has not paid its utility bills.
“The heat is unbearable and we have no respite from it,” said Shibu Razzaq, an Indian construction worker at the camp. “We just want to get our money and leave as soon as possible.”
Like Mr Razzaq and Mr Challil, other workers have also had to buy food on credit from nearby shops and restaurants. Mr Challil said he owed more than Dh1,000, a debt accumulated over the past six months.
“We already owe a lot of money to shopkeepers but they feel sorry for us and give us rice and other things for a basic meal,” Mr Razzaq said.
The workers said they felt abandoned in spite of approaching the consulate and submitting a written request for help on April 21.
“Today is the first day that anyone has asked about us,” said Mr Challil, after word spread among the Indian community.
Officials at the Indian Consulate in Dubai said they were not aware of a request made by the workers. They said that the consulate was co-ordinating with the Ministry of Labour to ensure the return of the workers by May 10.
K Kumar, the press officer for the Indian Community Welfare Committee, a branch of the Indian Consulate that oversees the welfare of distressed workers, said the priority was to ensure the men were given “three meals a day until they leave the country”.
The passports of the workers remain with the company, but Mr Kumar said that can be overridden by the labour department.
The National was unable to reach any of the company’s offices for comment. Most of the phone numbers for the Indian-based branches had been redistributed to other businesses, such as a hotel chain and an automobile store.
In the UAE, phone calls were unanswered in the Dubai and Sharjah offices. The Abu Dhabi phone number now belongs to a marine engineering company.