DOHA: Qatar yesterday began issuing sticker-free Residency Permit (RP) to expatriates and their families. RPs are not being stamped on people’s passports any more. They are rather being issued new ID cards that bear more details about the holder than before and they are now known as Residence Cards.
Hamad al Kuwari, head of the Premium Customers Division at Q-Post said that an agreement has been concluded with the Ministry of Interior to start the delivery of residence cards to companies and individuals, as “we had before with the General Directorate of Traffic, where we deliver driving licenses and registration cards that are processed through Metrah2 service. He added that almost 4,000-8,000 cards will be delivered daily to companies and individuals from now”.
He stated that there are three types of services for delivery with different fees in Q-Post. the first one is a monthly subscription of QR1,500 for companies having lots of transactions from one thousand to ten thousand workers. The second system is delivery of cards with a fee of QR100 for every 10 cards, and thirdly 1-4 cards with QR20 for each card. The cards are delivered within 24 hours inside Doha and 48 hours outside Doha at present. We are trying to deliver the cards on the same day, he added.
Concerning the new implementation Brig Muhammed Saleh Al Kuwari, head of the Residence Division at GDNBEA (General Directorate of Nationality, Border and Expatriate Affairs) said that the implementation of new technology has started smoothly without any problem. He added that the new residence card holds several security features that should not be tampered and cannot be faked as well as it carries data of the card holder.
He said that the advantages of the new system include speedy completion of transactions where the passports are not needed for sticker printing, as well as the number of customers visiting the departments will decrease dramatically.
He added that the General Directorate of Nationality and Expatriates Affairs and the Q-Post work in cooperation to deliver the cards through mail to the customers. For this the customer should use electronic system, and choose the delivery service through the post-office. Once the fees are paid the card will be handed to the postal officer who will deliver the card to the concerned person.
From his part Capt Abdullah Khalifa Al Mohannadi from the Technical office of the GDNBEA said that the new method was implemented after a long term research making big changes to the existing systems for RP issuance. He added that a set of services will be delivered through the new card in the near future whereas the new electronic card supports all future plans and services of the Ministry of Interior.
The Peninsula
