Abu Dhabi, June 02: The Federal National Council (FNC) on Tuesday held its 11th session chaired by Abdul Aziz Abdullah Al Ghurair, the Speaker of FNC, in the presence of Dr Mohammed Anwar Gargash, State Minister of FNC Affairs, Social Affairs Minister, Mariam Al Roumi, Minister of Education, Humaid Mohammed Obaid Al Qutami, Minister of Labour and board member of Emirates Identity Authority, Saqr Ghobash Saeed Ghobash, and a number of officials.
Al Ghurair condemned the Israeli attack on ‘The fleet of Freedom’ which was heading to Gaza Strip to deliver relief supplies and break the humanitarian aid blockade imposed on its citizens.
The FNC members unanimously demanded to issue a statement later on Tuesday condemning the Israeli crime towards the civilians who came from over 40 Arab and foreign countries, indicating that the statement would denounce the Israeli crime and include every word said by the Speaker.
On the reports received by the FNC, it approved the remarks made by The President, His Highness Shaikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan, on the amendment of provisions of the federal law No. 47 of 1992, regarding the establishment of the ‘marriage fund corporation’.
The FNC also agreed upon the recommendation of the Foreign Ministry on changing the word ‘dispute over the Islands’ to ‘Iranian occupation’ of the Emirati islands of Tunb Greater, Tunb Lesser and Abu Moussa.
The resolutions also called for stepping up the diplomatic efforts on the occupied Islands and setting up executive steps in coordination with media to reflect the true image of the occupation and its repercussions.
They also called for setting up permanent centre or museum about the three occupied islands as a reminder to officials and those concerned about the islands.
The FNC also discussed the Emirates Identity Authority (EIDA) policy, wherein the Federal Government is working to unify the online form of the Identity Card and residence visa, in a way that the entry of information by the applicant in entity will dispense with the need to do the same in others, said Saqr Ghobash, the labour minister. He said that the authority has finalised e-linking with the Ministry of Interior.
“In its new 2011-2013 plan, EIDA will target 7,000 to 20,000 people daily, and after re-viewing the procedures, registration will only take 6 to 10 minutes per applicant,” he said.
After completing registrations, the Authority will start e-linking with the ministries of Labour, Justice, health, Education and Higher education for they are the entities which are related to the transactions of largest portion of population in the country. The e-link will renew the information automatically, he said. All Emiratis who receive aid from the Ministry of social Affairs will be exempted from ID charges, as well as the needy.
The authority, he said, had also decided to set up centers for registration near the Preventive Medicine Centers, in order to link the medical test procedures to the registration and issue of the ID.
In reply to a question that the ID is not taken into account at most of government and private organisations, he said the authority will meet with the central bank governor to request him to ask the banks operating in the country to officially accept the IDs for finalising any deal or transaction.
In this context, he cited the experience of Dubai Courts department, where the time each transaction takes for processing and completion was reduced from five minutes to seven seconds with the use of the ID.
Meanwhile Ali Al Khouri, Acting Director-General of EIDA, said the number of people registered at EIDA so far accounted for 818,000 Emiratis, out of the total of 950,000, constituting 86 per cent of the total nationals.
He said, “Most of the unregistered UAE citizens are newly born as per the 2010 census, while the total number of expatriates registered at EIDA stood at 1,186,000, representing 16.4 per cent of the total expatriates in the country.”
–Agencies