Situation improves at PACI as Special Pilgrimage Forces deployed to keep law & order

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‘Prior appointment to visit Surra HQ must’

KUWAIT CITY, July 7: In the presence of Special Forces officers tasked with organizing the general public, maintaining order in the waiting halls and ensuring the smooth flow of work, Public Authority for Civil Information (PACI) witnessed calm and order when compared to the first day of work resumption when people scrambled to receive their civil IDs, and created chaos and congestion.

The waiting halls were relatively calm and the areas with civil ID dispensing machines were relatively empty. Despite the instruction to book a prior appointment for visiting and collecting civil IDs, the staff at the scene were lenient to dispense civil IDs that were ready to those who did not book prior appointments.

Director of the Civil ID Production and Distribution Department Jasem Al-Muazen affirmed the keenness of PACI to hand over 85,000 civil IDs which were already in the dispenser machines prior to the suspension of work based on the government’s measures to combat the spread of COVID- 19, as well as 350,000 civil IDs that were renewed recently.

He indicated that the cards that were prepared prior to the COVID- 19 crisis included 20,000 civil IDs of domestic workers, 11,000 civil IDs of Kuwaitis and approximately 51,000 civil IDs of other expatriates. Al-Muazen revealed the intention of PACI to destroy the cards if they have been left uncollected for a long time.

He said, “The process of destroying the cards that remain in the devices usually happens after the cards remain uncollected for a period of more than six months. However, under the current conditions the country has been going through in the past six months, the decision to either destroy or give more collection time of these cards is yet to be made.”

Al-Muazen explained that there are currently 40 civil-ID dispensers, and within two weeks, other modern devices will be added to dispense civil IDs that are either being issued for the first time or replacements for those lost or damaged, or for the newborns.

The process will not require the presence of a PACI employee. Each card dispenser has the capacity of holding 5,000, which means that the 40 dispensers in the main building and the 15 in Jahra have a combined capacity of delivering 275,000 cards.

Regarding the timings, Al- Muazen said the current collection period is from 9:00 am to 5:00 pm, adding that the timing will be extended until 9:00 pm as the country continues to progress through the phases of the plan for the return to normalcy. (Al Qabas)

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