JEDDAH, 4 February 2007 — The days of iqama booklets are over. The Passport Department begins issuing iqamas to foreign workers in the form of smart cards today in most cities including Jeddah, Dammam, Taif, Abha and Tabuk.
The department first introduced smart resident permits in the Riyadh region as part of efforts to prevent forgery and provide advanced services to both Saudis and expatriates. New smart iqamas will be issued within five minutes.
“We’ll start issuing the new electronic iqamas in a number of regions this week,” the department said. According to Brig. Muhammad Al-Asmari, director of the Passport Department in the Makkah region, the Jeddah office will start issuing new iqamas from today.
The new smart cards will bear the full name of the worker in both Arabic and English, the number, expiry date, photo, date of birth, nationality, profession, religion and the employer’s full name. The information on the card cannot be tampered with, sources told Arab News.
Smart iqamas will be available this week at passport offices in Makkah, Jeddah, Taif, the Saudi Arabian General Investment Authority (SAGIA) in Jeddah, Saudi Arabian Airlines in Jeddah, Dammam, Alkhobar, Saudi Aramco, Buraidah, Abha, Tabuk and the Northern Border Province.
The department said the facility would be available in the remaining parts of the Kingdom including Baha, Hail, Jizan, Al-Jouf, Najran, Al-Ahsa, Qurayat and Hafr Al-Baten within the next two weeks.
Expatriates, who have already received the long-awaited smart iqamas, were happy. “It’s very convenient and very simple to carry, easy to photocopy and difficult to forge as it is computerized with our picture on it,” said Zahid Akbar, a British teacher at Manarat Schools, whose iqama was issued in Riyadh. Each family member is given own card.
The Passport Department in Makkah issued its first smart iqamas yesterday. Col. Ayed ibn Daghaileb Al-Luqmani, director of the Makkah office, said his office has been provided with necessary equipment to issue the new iqamas.
“We have conducted a number of trial operations to check the system,” he said. The department has trained its officers to handle the new equipment and prepared them for any problems that might crop up.
Luqmani said the smart iqamas will be issued to those applying for new iqamas or renewing their residency permits.
Luqmani said his office started implementing a fingerprinting system on expatriates yesterday. The department has already introduced the system in parts of the country. “This week it will be implemented in Al-Jouf, Tabuk, Madinah, Jubail, Taif, Yanbu and Jeddah,” the department said. There are nearly seven million expatriates in the Kingdom.
