A new campaign to once again disrupt the lives of expatriates in the country has been temporarily suspended following intervention by parliamentarians and citizens concerned about the impact it would have on their businesses.
Earlier this week, a technical committee of General Traffic Department (GTD) of the Ministry of Interior (MoI), under the directive of its Undersecretary Lieutenant-General Faisal Al-Nawaf had decided to place a ‘block’ on issuing or renewing all driving licenses of expatriates, in order to ascertain whether the driver was eligible to be in possession of a driving license.
The directive also allowed the committee to begin rescinding licenses from 26 December, of those found to be ineligible to continue possessing one, or were found to have acquired the license through illegal means. The authorities began implementing the Undersecretary’s directive about a week ago by blocking access to the automated system for online renewal of licenses, and then issued orders to all traffic departments to stop renewal of expatriates’ driving licenses or replace lost documents until a mechanism was established by the technical committee formed for this purpose.
The broad sweep of the directive meant that all residents, even if they meet the conditions for holding a license, would no longer be able to drive their vehicles from 26 December, as the GTD had warned that those whose licenses have expired will face legal problems if they drive with an expired document. The traffic and rescue patrols have also been instructed to issue a citation if expatriates are caught driving with an expired license.The decision is expected to also likely to affect citizens who hire drivers to work for their households or businesses.
However, media reports cited parliamentarian, MP Abdulla Al Tarji as having tweeted that the MoI had placed on hold the new directive until a proper study had been conducted by the relevant authorities. The MP’s tweet said that the Minister of Interior had assured him that the decision had been temporarily suspended until further notice.
On a related note, it has been reported that the GTD is looking to link driving licenses issued to work permits of expatriates at the Public Authority of Manpower (PAM) and the residency affairs department of MoI, to help ascertain immediately whether the driver is eligible to drive a vehicle based on their job specification, their salary and academic qualifications mentioned in the work permit.
The new directive, if implemented, would lead to yet another crisis in the country that could completely paralyze all sectors of the economy. The directive is also incomprehensible given that the majority of workers had obtained driving licenses according to conditions set by the Ministry of Interior. Implementation of the new rule would cause huge financial losses to businesses and create another economic downturn, even before the country has recovered from the earlier downturn caused by COVID-19 crisis, and the still pending issue of not renewing work permits of non-graduates aged 60 and over.
The directive was apparently issued to address the problem of traffic congestion in the country, by reviewing and restructuring the granting of driving licenses to expatriates. The aphorism of cutting the leg to match the shoe comes to mind.
