The Emirates ID Card Confusion Continues

clarity matters"" (Photo credit: atinirdosh)

EIDA, the Emirates ID Authority, has established a remarkable track record of communication since its very inception. Many's the time I have posted about this deadline and that requirement being countered by that requirement and this deadline. Nothing has ever been terribly clear since the get go, if you don't mind me saying so.

And it remains oblique, opaque, obtuse and generally obfuscated. Today we have two reports in our newspapers. Well, news media - as one, Emirates 24x7, is not technically a paper anymore, having sublimed and become a being of pure energy.

Gulf News, then, is first to punch its grateful subscribers' eyeballs with a typically hard-hitting headline:

Millions of expat employees in UAE to save ID card costs biennially

The story, linked here for your viewing pleasure, is quite unequivocal:

"Millions of expatriate employees in the country can save the cost of over Dh200 for ID card renewal every two years, thanks to a new move by the Emirates Identity Authority (Emirates ID). Sponsors have to bear the costs of national ID cards of their expatriate employees, according to a top official."

And so on. It's quite clear, no beating around the bush. Our sponsors have to pay for our ID cards and take responsibility for the same - presumably extending to late renewal penalties (not cleared up in the story, but we can wait for clarity. God knows, we've waited since 2008.)

But what's this, in Emirates 24x7?

Rule to let sponsors bear expats' ID card cost under study: Eida

Hang on a cotton-pickin' moment there. 'Under study' doesn't mean 'new move', now does it? Emirates 24x7 goes on to add awful clarity to the assertion that this is no done deal but a 'move under the anvil' as Gulf News would have itself put it.

“We are considering the proposal to make it mandatory for sponsors to pay for the ID cards of their employee, but it has not been finalised. It is currently left for the companies to decide whether they want to pay the cost,” an Eida spokesperson told Emirates 24/7. No timeframe was, however, given on when the directive would be issued.

So has Gulf News jumped the gun, or Emirates 24x7 simply got it wrong? Or has EIDA told two different reporters two different things? Or perhaps told them both the same thing in terms so confusing they've come away with two different stories entirely?

We await, with a feeling of remorseless, crushing deja vu, clarification.