600,000 Dubai residents have yet to get ID cards

About 600,000 residents of Dubai have not yet registered for their Emirates ID cards, according to Dr Ali Al Khoury, Director General of the Emirates Identity Authority (EIDA).

He disclosed that "more than 90 per cent of those 600,000 persons are employed as workers in the emirate.

Dr. Khoury said, "The extension of the deadline for another one month until the end of June is meant for those who were not able to register for their IDs. It is long enough to finish registering all the residents of the emirate.”

He pointed out that "the decision to extend the deadline for a month was taken to allow employees who were not able to register to do so without having to pay the late fine".

Dr. Khoury added that the decision was in response to requests received by the EIDA through its website and through its pages on social networking sites."

Dr Khoury disclosed: "EIDA has finished registering 90 per cent of the population of Dubai during the Dubai resident registration deadline, which ended on May 31.”

Dr. Khoury urged private companies to speed up the process of registering their workers.

He added that the companies should take prior appointment and not simply drop their employees by busloads at the registration centers.

He explained that the EIDA centers received about 70,000 forms on May 31 alone, which means that the 600,000 remaining residents have ample time during the extension period to finish registering themselves.

He said in an exclusive statement to Emirates247 "The statistics indicate that the month of May witnessed the highest number of forms received by EIDA in one month at the state level since the start of registrations in 2005 of about one million forms (new and renewal).”

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