Director General of Public Authority for Civil Information (PACI) Musaed Al-Asousi affirmed the keenness of PACI to develop its mechanisms and improve its services in line with latest technologies, whether in its interaction with the public or in the services it offers beneficiaries in both public and private sectors.

In a press statement, Al- Asousi revealed PACI’s intention to launch the prepaid service for civil ID cards on Sunday, March 19. He explained that the authority will receive the civil ID charges at the time of application for a civil ID card.

In a case of failure in paying while applying, the process will not be halted but the issuance of the card will be postponed until the payment is made through various points of payment designated by PACI.

Failure to pay the required charges as per the new system will lead to a penalty. This measure was taken due to the accumulation of about 150,000 civil IDs that the owners of which had failed to collect. This means the cost of issuing these cards are not covered directly or indirectly.

Al-Asousi stressed that the move is aimed at achieving many objectives. Most important of all is to bring an end to the collection of cash, which is in line with directives from Ministry of Finance.

PACI has opened several payment methods – via the Internet through www.paci.gov.kw, through mobile service “IVR” and by calling hotline 1889988 and opting for SMS text option to notify the card owner about the civil ID collection status.

Al-Asousi revealed that PACI issues about 15,000 civil ID cards on a daily basis. Reiterating that 150,000 cards are not collected on an annual basis, most of which are of domestic workers, he indicated that this was one of the reasons for increasing the charges of civil ID issuance, based on the observations of State Audit Bureau and monitoring of the National Assembly, as the production cost of civil IDs has increased. Al-Asousi expressed appreciation and gratitude to all who worked on this project, affirming that PACI will continue exerting efforts to develop and improve its services.

News Source: Arab Times    By Mohammad Ghanim, Al-Seyassah Staff