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E-dirham crisis ends

ABU DHABI — The e-dirham crisis ended on Wednesday after causing delays and suffering to people visiting Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs to process their transactions.

Crowds were seen on Monday, especially at the typing offices at the ministry. "We contacted the officials to see what was wrong with the system. Things went back to normal only yesterday morning," said a source at the transaction processing office.

Company representatives complained of repeated hiccups in the system at the ministry. "It is so exasperating ... We have a new hiccup every now and then. The ministry is helping us fight boredom, apparently," said one representative, sarcastically.

The authorities, however, denied any system fault or discrepancies.

A spokesman of the Ministry of Finance and Industrial Affairs (MOFI), which is in charge of the system, told Khaleej Times that e-dirham was made available at many locations and what had happened could be misunderstanding of the system by some applicants.

"It seems that many people possibly tend to use vending machines. This must have created the long queues. E-dirham is available at 11 banks which have 90 branches. There are also 40 vending machines at various locations," said the MOFI spokesman.

To ensure the public convenience, the Emirates Post has started to sell e-dirham at 10 of its branches and the service will be available at 78 of its branches by the year-end.

The spokesman said to avoid experiencing such problems in future applicants should buy an e-card beforehand. They can also now recharge their card via the Internet or at the Dubai Commercial Bank and Mashreq Bank.

The ministry has also been negotiating with other banks to introduce the service. In Abu Dhabi, applicants at other government departments were also confused following the scrapping of e-dirham system by local health authorities in the Abu Dhabi Emirate.

Confirming that the system was no more applicable at local health institutions in Abu Dhabi, Ahmed Al Rumaithi, Executive Director of Operation at the General Authority for Health Service (GAHS) for the Emirate of Abu Dhabi, said: "The system has been scrapped at all the local health institutions and medical departments. The move is aimed to further speed up the process of handling applications and abbreviate steps needed to deal with transactions."

He said the e-dirham facility made it difficult to process health transactions, that to get e-dirham card people had to wait in queues. "We have monitored that people had to wait in queues to get e-card. They even used to find it difficult sometimes in getting the facility due to non-availability of adequate branches of banks near health departments where their applications are processed," said Rumaithi.

He said the authority wanted to cut down on time spent on the procedures and provide the capital's residents with quality service in getting their health transactions processed.

"We meant to cut long procedures short. People had to have their transactions processed through one counter only. Scrapping the e-dirham system has succeeded in attaining our goal."

He said all medical departments and health institutions had been ordered to stop the electronic facility and manually collect fees levied on different health transactions.

Proven efficacy

ABU DHABI — The federal health authorities say the e-dirham system has been efficient in processing applications and maintaining security.

"The e-dirham facility has shortened long queues and many other manual procedures. It has proven its efficacy in sparing federal departments the hassles of creating jobs for cashiers," said Abdullah Al Ahmadi, Director of Finance Department at the Ministry of Health.

He said the facility is being supported by the Ministry of Finance, which provided ATM machines at various departments to enhance the system.

"The e-card has security value as it ensures safety of collected fees. Some big local departments in Dubai have installed ATM machines and could, through the system, process their transactions directly from their offices."