JEDDAH, 9 February — The Passports department will start issuing magnetic residence permits (iqama) to expat residents in the Kingdom from early next year, Al-Madinah newspaper reported yesterday. This was stated by Maj. Gen. Abdul Aziz Sajeeni, director general of Passports, in a press meeting at the Passports directorate here. The magnetic document will be issued in collaboration with the Ministry of Finance and National Economy and the Information Center. The new iqama, which cannot be forged like the paper document, is designed after the civil status card used by citizens.
Sajeeni also said in the press meeting the department recorded the details of 450 Haj establishments in a computerized register with the aim of curbing the illegal practice of issuing excessive number of Haj permits, resorted to by some unscrupulous people. The Haj ministry has allocated a specific number of permits to each establishment after evaluating their size and capacity, the director general said. The department will check periodically the licensed establishments to ascertain the exact number of permits issued by them to the pilgrims. The pilgrims' permits will be checked at entry points while the violators will be turned back, he said. He also warned the establishments against the practice of not fulfilling the contractual obligations to the pilgrims. The errant establishments will be severely will be punished.
Al-Sajeeni said there was no upper limit for the number of domestic pilgrims this year. He appealed to those who intend to perform the fifth compulsory duty of Muslims to rush to the concerned agencies to get the Haj permit without waiting for the eleventh hour to get their documents readied. Services of several additional staff with computerized counters have been made available for the speedy and prompt service of the increasing number of domestic pilgrims.
The Passports has demanded the shipping companies which transport pilgrims to the Kingdom to return the pilgrims by air if there is any disruption in the scheduled return voyages after the Haj is over, he said. This move is aimed at eradicating the unbecoming practice of pilgrims sleeping on pavements and passages in front of the Jeddah Islamic Port waiting for ships. Passengers sometimes have to wait indefinitely because of the delay in the departure of the ships, Al-Eqtisadiah reported.
Meanwhile the Passports officials arrested 216 violators of residence and labor regulations from Riyadh and Baha, said Col. Abdul Rahman Al-Saigh, director of expat monitoring in Riyadh. Al-Saigh said officials under him arrested the violators after his office received several calls from citizens about the camps of illegally present people in several regions such as Al-Batha, Al-Naseem and Al-Wizarat district. He said 57 people were violators of iqama and labor rules while four were overstayers who came from Makkah after performing Umrah. On the other hand, 13 people admitted that they entered the Kingdom without legal documents while seven people did not have any document of identification at all.
The illegal aliens posed health risks, in addition to being a burden on the economy and creating social and security problems, as they came to the Kingdom without observing mandatory medical precautions against various fatal contagious diseases.
