As the issue surrounding residency stickers and civil IDs has resurfaced recently, government authorities were alarmed to look into the system once again and to remedy parts of the process where expats are facing trouble with when conducting transactions at banks or when checking in at airports abroad.
This has proven to become a persisting problem, as officials have yet established a complete solution to the cause of difficulties to many expats living in the Gulf State.
Service Centres for Expats Similar to Citizens’ Should be Made Available – PACI
In line with this, the The Public Authority for Civil Information (PACI) has called upon the Ministry of Finance to open service centres for expatriates just like the ones that cater to Kuwaitis, as shared in a report by the Arab Times Online.
As per government data, PACI is dealing with more than 3.3 million expatriates distributed in different governorates of Kuwait, and in order to facilitate the registration of their data as well as the issuance of their civil ID cards, the authority decided to call for the establishment of service centres for them similar to citizen’s service centres.
In pursuant to this goal, the PACI shall announce the request for service by the specialized companies in this field (as determined by the Authority) to open the required centres and link them with the main computer network while maintaining the confidentiality of data in PACI, given that the role of these centres is to update and enter data only.
The authority pointed out six advantages in opening these centres which include reducing the pressure and congestion on the main building of the PACI, covering the largest geographical area possible to facilitate arrival of expatriates, and increase the working hours at these centres.
The costs of establishing, equipping, staff allocation, and linkage with the Authority shall be borne by the service company.
Furthermore, the company shall also transfer the fees to the PACI account while it collects fixed service fees. Supervisors from the PACI shall be distributed to these centres to ensure that the company complies with the rules and regulations in providing services under the standards of the Authority.
This should bring a positive effect not only to the expat communities, but also for the citizens, because given the huge number of expats in the country, opening more service centres will provide more jobs to Kuwait nationals, and at the same time, decongest PACI centres which both handle citizen and expat transactions all over the state.