ID applications cancelled after missing appointments

About 5,000 people whose ID card applications were cancelled last week for missing two consecutive appointments have also lost the fee they paid. They have to not only repeat the pre-registration process at a typing centre but pay the fee again, according to a top official. "The cancellation of application means the entire pre-registration process has been cancelled; when they do the process again, definitely they have to pay the fee [again]," Dr Ali Al Khoury, Director General of Emirates ID, told Gulf News yesterday. As Gulf News reported on Wednesday, Emirates ID cancelled 5,000 applications processed by typing centres across the country because the applicants missed two consecutive appointments, Emirates ID officials said. When they missed the first appointment, Emirates ID gave them one more chance by providing a second appointment by SMS but they missed that too, the officials said. Al Khoury said the authority had to take strict action because many people fail to turn up for registration on appointment. "That's why we had to cancel the applications of those who missed two consecutive appointments." "They [those who miss appointments] waste their time and others' [time] too," he said. Gulf News could not reach any applicant whose application was cancelled. Link to residence visa The official said about 8,000 to 9,000 people a day are registering for ID cards across the country. The progress in linking residence visa issuance and renewal to ID card registration has increased the number of registrations, Al Khoury said. Efforts to link visa medical tests at the Preventive Medicine Centre in Mussafah in Abu Dhabi to ID card registration are progressing, he said. "It will be done soon." Dubai and Sharjah free zones will also link residence visas with the ID card registration soon. "The expatriates who are undergoing visa medical tests have to first register for ID cards when the linking process is completed," Al Khoury said. He said the linking process will be extended to all Preventive Medicine Centres conducting visa medical tests across the country by the end of this year. Strategy As Gulf News reported, Emirates ID has already linked the issuance and renewal of visas with ID card registration in four emirates — Ajman, Umm Al Quwain, Fujairah and Ras Al Khaimah — as part of its strategy to enrol all expatriates in the country by the end of 2013. Visa medical tests at Preventive Medicine Centres in Dibba Al Hosn and Al Dhaid, in Sharjah and the western region of Abu Dhabi were also linked with ID card registrations recently. This was part of the initiative to extend the linking process to small PMCs across the country, before an emirate-wide extension of the system.