Suggestion box

Gary Larsen - The Far Side

Since September, I have been undertaking the Identity Card Experience, and I still don’t have one. Well, I do, but it expired last July and when I started the Experience, the nice man at the typing centre punched a hole through the chip and rendered the old card useless.

In order to prevent anyone from falling through the cracks and not getting an ID card, the current procedure is to apply for the card before obtaining a Residence Visa. In fact, Residence cannot be confirmed until proof is supplied that the resident has applied for an ID card. The ID card application is automatically rejected because there’s no residence visa on file. Then, once the visa is in the passport, the applicant goes back to the same typing centre where the original application was made, a scanned copy of the visa is put on file, and the ID card arrives within two weeks.

Based on my experience, I have a couple of suggestions that might make this simple process even more of a pleasure:-

If there is a problem with the application, such as the passport and visa serial numbers held by the Identity Authority not matching those held by the Immigration Department, the applicant should be contacted and advised. It is not helpful simply to tell the applicant that his card will be delivered within two weeks, and then to repeat this lie for three months.

The Identity Authority should ensure that if the applicant is told that someone will speak to him by telephone within a week, then that phone call should be made. Cancelling the entire application two days later “for not performing the required modification within the communicated deadline” is not the way to ensure customer satisfaction. Particularly when no required modification nor deadline were communicated.

One of the reasons why it takes five hours of waiting at the Identity Authority office to learn that the problem lies with the Immigration Department is that up to thirteen of the sixteen available desks are unoccupied. Employees working at the occupied desks should serve customers and not stare vacuously into space, nor fiddle with their bottles of antiseptic hand lotion for ten minutes between each customer.

Someone at the Immigration Department has to type the new passport and visa details into a computer in order to produce the printed sticker that goes into the applicant’s passport. It would be helpful, then, that these records are proliferated across the Immigration Department and Identity Authority’s computers so that out-of-date information doesn’t frustrate the ID card application process.

There is little point in the Immigration Department opening at 0700 if the computers don’t come on line until 0800. The servers are presumably working continuously to process people entering and leaving the country at any time, and it isn’t really rocket surgery to provide Immigration officials access to the database whenever they’re at work serving customers. Whoever pays the Immigration Department salaries would surely appreciate not paying for an hour of non-productive time every day for every employee.

Is it really necessary for updates of Immigration records to be undertaken not at the Immigration Department but at a separate office in the central Post Office?

]}:-{>

'tardy responses

The last thing I probably need at the moment is more stress, yet this is what I've chosen to inflict on myself. It all relates to the demobilisation process.

Long story short: I don't want to sell my bike; I don't want to sell my car. As there is evidently a process for exporting motor vehicles (why else would export plates exist?), I want to export my vehicles from Qatar to the UAE.

International transfer of motor vehicles is always exciting. For some reason, there has to be a massive pile of paperwork. Some of this relates to ensuring that a car manufactured for one market is acceptable for use in a different market. There are certain fundamentals such as where the steering wheel is, and whether the rear indicators are orange or red and combined with the brake lights.

Updating this post on 5th June, inserted below are my latest findings. Look for the italics.

I did this once before, and have learned my lesson. "Hi, Mr DHL. Here's my motorbike and a big wad of cash. Please deliver it to me in Qatar." appears simple enough, but in practice required that I constantly monitored progress and poked DHL at regular intervals to get the process moving again.

This time, I'm going the other way: Qatar to UAE. It occurred to me that if I put the bike on a trailer and towed it to Dubai behind the car, I could move house with a minimum of fuss. It's not as if a 700km drive is any big deal, after all. But between here and there lies the magic Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

Obviously I have to de-register the car and bike and get them on export plates. These are valid for ten days. Then I need a transit visa so that I'm allowed to enter the KSA, which I'm only allowed to do provided I promise to leave again. No problem.

I suspected that the procedure would be fraught with obstacles, so I started to ask for information. There are many, many people and organisations in Qatar whose job is to arrange import and export, so one might have imagined that someone would know how to do what is fundamentally a very simple process.

"Trailers not permitted." So the money I've spent getting a towbar fitted is a waste. Bugger. I guess I'll not be lashing out thousands of riyals on a bike trailer. In any case, this 'no trailers' thing is surely patent nonsense; I know several rally teams who successfully move cars and bikes between Qatar and the UAE by road, and they use trailers.

You have to go through an authorised agent to get a Saudi visa. Mine told me that there was absolutely no problem with towing a trailer. The small matter of the trailer cropped up after I'd spoken to a helpful gentleman in the Saudi embassy consular section about why my transit by motorcycle had been refused. After I'd told the agent his response to me, the agent called me back and advised that when I'd been told, "Motorbike? No problem," what I should have been told was, "Motorbike? Impossible."

"Cannot own a vehicle in UAE unless you have a residence visa." This is more of a poser, but luckily I have a Beloved Wife who can own vehicles, and she's resident in Dubai.

There remains some debate about importing more than one vehicle, but as it's a car and a bike and not two cars, this is - at least today - not a problem.

"Your wife must come to Qatar and bring a letter of No Objection stamped by the Embassy." What a lot of rot. If you don't know, why do you insist on making stuff up?

It seems that in order to transport her vehicles over land, a Power of Attorney letter from Beloved Wife is required. This is obtained from a Qatar court, or a UAE court, or I can do it on the basis of Beloved Wife's written No Objection to her husband handling matters. Which version is true depends on who's spouting it.

"Cannot transfer ownership in Qatar unless both parties have Qatar residence." A more senior Captain over at the Traffic Police said that this was nonsense, and having a copy of the purchaser's passport and visa would be sufficient.

"Cannot drive without permission of the owner." Well I'd better get a letter of permission, then. Duh.

As above. Power of Attorney letter is required - in Arabic - for land transportation. It's not required for transport by sea, because then Saudi isn't involved.

"Cannot enter UAE without visa." Visa on arrival.

"Cannot leave Qatar by road because your exit permit is only valid for leaving by air." Well I guess I'll have to get a 'Leaving Qatar by Road' exit permit.

There is no difference. It's an exit permit. Period.

"Cannot register bike unless you have UAE residence and a motorbike licence." So it'll have to wait until I've got UAE residence then. I can't get that until after my Qatar residence has been cancelled, and I can't cancel Qatar until after dealing with all of the business.

Having asked about a dozen different professionals in the export business and got nearly a score of different answers, here is what I believe to be the definitive list of Things To Do. It is based on getting the same story from senior people in several different offices:-

1. Letter from Beloved Wife confirming permission to driver her motorbike.
2. Copy of Beloved Wife's passport and UAE residence visa.
3. Go to Traffic Police in Doha and get export plates and transit insurance for the bike.
4. Ensure export certificate is in Beloved Wife's name.
5. Go to Doha Port with original sales invoice, original import paperwork that proves that import duty was paid when the bike first entered a Gulf country, Certificate of Origin, export certificate. All vehicles more than two years old are subject to 5% tax based on current assessed value.
6. Obtain Bayat Al Maqasa, a certificate stating that all taxes are paid. But this is a worthless document if the vehicle is more than two years old.

At this point it would be possible to load the bike into a container, on to the back of a truck, or on to a ferry. However...

1. Take export certificate and passport to company Public Relations Officer.
2. Obtain company No Objection to my riding Beloved Wife's bike from Qatar to UAE through KSA. (Essentially this is an Arabic translation of Beloved Wife's letter).
3. Obtain one-use KSA transit visa. No. Motorbike forbidden.
4. Obtain exit permit for overland travel. Cancelled.
5. Load personal effects on to the bike, and travel. Cancelled.

Upon arrival in Dubai, fly back to Qatar and repeat the entire process with the car.

All futile. Can't get Arabic Power of Attorney letter because nobody will say which version is acceptable, and thus overland transport is out of the question. So it looks like Mr Hobson is going to put everything in 20-ft box and float it over to Jebel Ali at phenomenal expense.

Wish me luck.

When all this is over, I'll post the actual procedure in the naive hope that someone else trying to pull the same stunt will be confronted with the same hurdles.

]}:-{>

Who wants to be a milliner?

The Goat’s recent silence on the InterTubes of late has been because of other rather more pressing engagements. One of these involved the Goat’s almost full passport. Others involved beer.

According to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, a British UAE resident has to send his applications for a replacement passport to Düsseldorf rather than the previous system that involved having it done at the local British Embassy. First pay £15 to PayPal to obtain permission to download the application form, then send off the form, old passport and nearly €300. “Up to” six weeks later, the new passport would arrive.

Unfortunately, having his residence visa cancelled upon termination of employment would give the Goat four weeks to leave the country. The potential for being trapped without a passport and incurring fines for illegally remaining in the UAE rather encouraged a holiday in Blighty.

So the Goat applied for a same-day appointment at Nanny Goat’s local passport office, picked up the application form for free from the local post office, and now has a new biometric passport. Huzzah! Visits to the in-laws in the USA without all that pesky form-filling to get a visa are now possible.

The Immigration and Passport Service has to be self-funding. It is, of course, completely unreasonable that the British taxpayer subsidises Mrs Trellis’ holiday from North Wales to Benidorm; arguably more so when the travel involves a tax-free job in Dubai. Thus a standard UK passport currently costs around £78. Same-day service by special appointment and a jumbo 48-page document is £140ish. As £78 apparently covers all the costs of the IPS, the Goat idly speculates as to the justification of nearly €300 for Brits abroad.

Travel costs didn’t count in the Goat’s case because he was going anyway.

Visiting family and friends, the Goat borrowed Nanny Goat’s car and gave it the sort of thrashing that the old rented Yaris received between Dubai and Abu Dhabi, and achieved the same result: 40mpig, or 7l/100km for the rest of the planet. Poor little City Rover.

Thank you to Mr and Mrs Thrash, the Gnomad and Gnomadette, and the Lawful Goods of Cowplain for their hospitality, food and the opportunity for boating on the Thames.

The weather on the run up to Easter was gloriously sunny, even resulting in the Goat getting slightly sunburned in the open cockpit of the MV Jedi between Sunbury-upon-Thames and Windsor. Next time, wear some form of hat. A new record for possibly the slowest passage was caused by repeatedly having the river locks slammed shut in our faces because they were full of other boaters who had had the same idea involving sunny weather and messing about in boats. By the time we arrived, all mooring spots were taken and the Good Ship Jedi had to be rafted three out. This made getting small children ashore an entertaining experience; just as well they’re used to this sort of thing.

Incidentally, the Goat was appalled when his host produced a French flag. In England. On St George’s Day. And Bill Shakespeare’s birthday. There was some feeble excuse about it being an unused courtesy flag for a boat trip over the Channel that was postponed because of foul weather.

Moored in a very busy Windsor, it was noted that Her Maj., Mrs Liz Windsor was in residence up at the local castle. Witness the Royal Standard flying from the topmost tower. The Goat shared his speculation that, because of her grandson’s upcoming wedding, she might have actually been down the hat shop. (Although in Soviet Russia, as the ancient memes say, the hat shop comes to you.) Nanny Goat, who was in London on a coach trip at the time, reports that Her Maj.’s car was actually parked outside Westminster Abbey on Thursday while the monarch was inside doling out Maundy money.

Now back chez Nanny Goat, her offspring is bemoaning the fact that the display on his new mobile phone has died. A fully-functional phone, but no access to any menus, is worse than useless except for receiving voice calls. Imagine being unable to read all the texts that can be heard arriving. And it can’t even be backed up. The Goat has tried and failed to switch on Bluetooth by Braille, and suspects another new handset may be in order.

]}:-{>

No ID-er

Photo of the Black Beast by HDR enthusiast,

the Yellow Box Of Doom

The Goat has managed to survive motorcycling in the UAE for an entire year, and considers wood to be touched. So it comes as no surprise that a visit to the Sharjah Tasjeel Auto Village was in order this week.

The insurance premium went up, despite depreciation of the machine’s value, but then went down a bit once I reminded the insurance company that a No-Claims discount was applicable. I still have Fully Comp. owing to the prodigious cost of Japanese plastic.

The test involved an inspector confirming that the VIN on the frame was the same as the VIN on the old registration card, and then checking that the lights all worked. After trying and failing to find the lights and indicator switches, he asked me to work the switchgear:

“Is the brake light working?”

“Yes.”

“Headlights?”

“Yes.”

“Indicators?”

“Yes. No. Yes. No. Yes...”

The inspector also passed comment that the bike was “too much big”, meaning that Muggins got to schlep it into the inspection area and out again some 30 seconds later. Nobody passed comment regarding the non-standard exhaust system, and I wasn’t about to point out that it was For Off-Road Use Only™. As I have previously noted, the silencer isn’t overly loud anyway. At 5000rpm it’s no louder than the stock pipe.

A couple of weekends ago I was over at the Aprilia shop in International City for an open day and brunch. Several Harley-Davidsons went on to the dynamometer. They were all extremely loud, and one with its straight-through (and apparently street-legal (yeah, right!)) pipes would have rendered me stone-deaf if I’d not been wearing ear defenders. Instead the sound merely turned my internal organs to jelly. But I digress.

So no complaints so far. I paid my Dh100 for the test, and then moved on to have the insurance document checked. At this point I was asked for a passport copy with valid visa page. I proffered my Emirates ID Card, that important document whose absence will have the Ministry of the Interior “...refuse provide its services to the relevant UAE citizens and residents who did not register...”

The man behind the counter was not interested. I asked what was wrong with the ID card; why it was not acceptable, and he said he didn’t know. This is precisely what I had anticipated, so I produced the passport photocopy.

So I wonder what has happened to:

“The grace period stipulated by the Ministry of the Interior for UAE nationals and residents to obtain and accept the ID will lapse on 22 November [2009]...”

and

“MOI’s various services provided to individuals throughout the UAE are as follows: All vehicle and driver licensing services...”

OK, so “...residents of Abu Dhabi, Dubai and Sharjah, only on temporary basis...” are excepted because the EIDA didn’t anticipate everyone rushing to get an ID card as instructed by the - erm - EIDA, and were consequently inundated. But not to accept the document that is designed to replace having to produce a passport and visa copy when it is available is, to my way of thinking, ludicrous.

Given that I only ever used my ID card to get packages off Aramex, and then only because my driving licence wasn’t immediately to hand, it occurs to me that this whole ID card fiasco is probably a waste of time, effort and money. Still, it gives me something the write about.

After handing over my passport copy with valid residence visa page, I went over to the traffic police desk. I was charged Dh130 for a new registration card. No fines. Huzzah! Another mostly satisfied customer.

]}:-{>

A villa in new DXB

A house in The Greens, an Arabian Ranch.
If you want to own it and not merely loan it
You'll need to come up with a million or more
In cash or a mortgage whose rates make you sore.

There is a catch!
Where?
Buyer beware!
Why should I take such care?
Because the rules keep changing,
Fair or unfair,
And you'll find yourself tearing your hair.
Despair!


At first we were promised a visa with freehold
And then after buyin', it turned out they was lyin'.
No visa? No phone; no electricity.
Small wonder that expats were starting to flee.

Give them six months!
Six
Months at a time
Residence should be fine,
Then send them on vacation.
Smile and don't whine
'cos the problem is yours and not mine.
I'm fine!


If you own a freehold apartment or villa
Your maximum stay's just a hundred'n'eighty days.
Then leave for a month, save up dirhams two grand
To buy a new visa to live in Sandland.

You wonder why
I
Don't buy Dubai?
My, how it goes awry!
Oh, the confusion,
'til from on high
Comes a missive that should clarify
Just why
To buy.

Bye-bye!

The original music and lyrics, by Ted Dicks and Myles Rudge, were made famous in 1965 by Ronnie Hilton.

]}:-{>

Mad rush

The Hitch-Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy explains the function if the Ident-I-Eze card like this:

There are so many different ways in which you are required to provide absolute proof of your identity these days that life can easily become extremely tiresome just from that fact alone, never mind the deeper existential problems of trying to function as a coherent consciousness in an ambiguous universe.

Just look at cashpoint machines, for instance.

Queues of people standing around waiting to have their fingerprints read, their retinas scanned, bits of skin scraped from the nape of the neck and undergoing instant genetic analysis.

Hence the Ident-I-Eze.

This encodes every single piece of information about you, your body and your life into one all-purpose machine-readable card that you can carry around in your wallet, thereby representing technology’s greatest triumph to date over both itself and plain common sense.

The Emirates Identity Authority is administering this. In keeping with traditional local custom and practice, nothing happens for ages, and then an ambiguous piece of legislation suddenly pops into existence requiring instant action. Gulf News records the problems people are having trying and failing to register on line. And 7DAYS, under the headline threatening “Jail for false info” says that “Professionals such as doctors, lawyers, engineers and teachers will all have to have ID cards which will contain face and fingerprint scans, passport and driving licence details, their addresses and residency status.” Along with allergies, sexual orientation, political persuasion and religious beliefs. I might be making up these last few.

After paying the Dh100 tax fee, the card will have to be shown for “…any kind of negotiations with government departments or banks.” and when …“opening a bank account, visiting doctors, registering for a mobile phone or registering children into a school.”

There will no longer be a need to produce a passport and visa copy when registering the car, applying for a phone or electricity service, or renting a flat. Well, that makes it all worthwhile, doesn’t it? Assuming, of course, that the jobsworth behind the counter doesn't continue to demand the passport copy in addition to the ID card because he's not been instructed otherwise. And I bet every official will need a photocopy of the ID card too; whizzing it through a card reader will certainly not be inconvenient good enough.

As for the sudden mad rush, what’s wrong with including the ID card process with Residence Visa applications or renewals? To simple I suppose. Too obvious, and far too sensible.

]}:-{>

Pythonesque

For anyone who's not aware of Mr Praline, he is the plastic-mac-wearing character played by John Cleese who either has a dead Norwegian Blue parrot or who wishes to purchase a fish licence.

Praline: I wish to register a complaint.

Official: We're closed for lunch.

Praline: Never mind that, young man. I wish to complain about this Salik tag what I purchased not half an hour ago from the ENOC station down the road.

Official: Oh yeah? What's wrong with it?

Praline: I'll tell you what's wrong with it, my man. It don't work. That's what's wrong with it. I stuck it on my windscreen, drove over Garhoud bridge and the system deducted Dh500 from my account and logged seven Salik fines.

Official: I can't help you. Please log on to the website and click on the 'Contact Us' tab.

Praline: I tried that. Your website is down. And anyway, I'm here in person. Find me someone who can deal with the problem.

Official: He is not on his seat. Please wait.

waits...

Praline: Is the person who can help me back yet. Is he back "on his seat"?

Official: No. He is on vacation for three weeks.

Praline: In that case, I shall speak to someone else about car pooling.

Official: You need a permit.

Praline: Your inspector slapped me with a Dh5000 fine the other day while I was driving to work with my friend. And the rules say that if you give your friend a lift you don't need a permit.

Official: But this is not a friend. He is a work colleague.

Praline: My colleague and I live in the same street. We socialise together. Our families go on vacation together.

Official: But you work in the same office. Therefore he is not a 'friend' but a 'colleague', so you must have a permit. No permit: Dh5000 fine.

Praline: I've had enough of this. I'm leaving. I'll cancel my utilities and then I'm off to the airport.

DEWA...

Official: You can't have your DEWA deposit back unless you can produce the original receipt.

Praline: But you've been supplying me with water and electricity for the past several years! And you won't do that unless I've paid a deposit.

Official: You are completely correct.

Praline: Therefore I must have paid a deposit.

Official: Absolutely right.

Praline: And now I've paid my final bills, I get my deposit back?

Official: Only if you produce the original receipt.

at the airport...

Praline: I'm leaving. I'd like my visa deposit back please.

Official: You must collect your deposit from airside. We can't have you getting your deposit back here and then disappearing back out of the airport, can we?

airside...

Praline: Can I have my deposit back please?

Official: You should have collected that on groundside.

Praline: Oh... Can I just --- ?

Official: No! You cannot go back.

Praline: Give me my money!

Official: We have no money. An Airbus A380 just left and all 500 passengers took their deposits. I started my shift with half a million dirhams in used hundreds and it's all gone. Will you take a cheque?

Praline: A cheque in UAE dirhams? My bank in my home country won't cash that. What is the alternative?

Official: A voucher for Dh1000 to spend in Dubai Duty Free and a free cuddly Modhesh?

Praline: Does it talk?

Official: Yes.

Praline: I'll take it.

]}:-{>

I know where you're coming from

This map was generated using the World66 web site. Is it, as the website intends, a graphical demonstration of countries I've visited? Well no, actually. I used the tool to save myself a thousand words and summarise whose passport holders can obtain a 30-day free visa on arrival in the UAE. As at today, here is the up to date information.

Important disclaimer: check before you visit. Rules tend to change. Caveat peregrinans.

Oh look: citizens of rich and/or western(ised) countries are allowed to get in for free. Why are the visa costs going up (example: from Dh100 to Dh500) for citizens of all the other countries? How fair and reasonable is it to charge high rates to prospective labourers, teaboys and maids when western executives can get in for nuppence?

Ah, but of course we want rich, professional executives to visit and to buy allegedly 'freehold' real estate, whereas we hate the idea of nice residential areas becoming polluted by large numbers of hawk - spit - ching! bachelors. By making visas prohibitively expensive it'll knock the UAE off their itinerary.



While we're about it, let's tear down Satwa. A picture of old Dubai does the rounds that shows Sheikh Zayed Road in 1991. As recently as then, Satwa was pretty much a desert. In 17 years it has become urbanised, turned into multiple copies of the Crumbling Villa and been scheduled for demolition. Where are Umm Khammas and her Freej chums going to live then? Modern luxury apartments, presumably.

And having expunged from Dubai everyone except the rich, living la vida local in their modern luxury apartments and villas, who's going to empty the bins, sweep the streets, dust the aforementioned apartments, clean, service and refuel the cars?

]}:-{>