The Ministry of Interior has embarked on a new project to cancel the old valid driving licenses and replace them with the new ones, security sources while at the same time cleaning its house of thousands of licenses which had either been acquired fraudulently, those who no longer qualify to hold them after the purpose for which they had been issued expired and those who have left the country and have not returned.
Al-Rai has learned hundreds of thousands of licenses given to expatriates are likely to be cancelled and the General Traffic department put the figure at about 250,000.
The sources pointed out the committee in charge of implementing the project began its work at the beginning of December and is expected to complete work within three months.
This means the implementation of decision is expected to be enforced soon in light of the keenness of the Ministry of Interior to reduce congestion and traffic density.
The sources said the tripartite technical committee comprising members from the General Traffic Department, Information Systems and the Public Authority for Manpower will face various challenges in replacing the approximately 3 million licenses which have not yet been replaced with new ones.
The sources explained replacing this large number requires first of all an army of employees to receive the visitors, as well as the material from which the ‘magnetic’ license card is made by a company which has a contract with the GTD.
The sources revealed the first stage includes all expatriates who hold old valid licenses and this process will lead to the cancellation of about 250,000 for several reasons mentioned above. The sources stressed the GTD in future will be very strict in granting licenses to expatriates to eliminate traffic congestion significantly.
