Kuwait considers granting visit visas to close relatives of citizens

The Interior Ministry of Kuwait is mulling granting visit visas to close relatives of the country’s citizens via the automated visa system, or e-visas, said security forces of the country. According to them, children, parents and wife would be classified as close relatives. The sources, however, said that the e-visa system would be expanded in the future by activating the e-government services and alleviating the pressure on all government departments. The Ministry of Interior’s Info Systems General Department is, on the other hand, continuing its efforts in consultation with the Public Authority for Civil Information’s consent for issuing a special secret number to each citizen, which will be known as the pki that will, in turn, provide access to the website of electronic services of the Interior Ministry. Once that is in place, it will allow citizens to log in with their civil ID number and later by the pki to perform transactions electronically. Meanwhile, the Council of Ministers has told the Deputy Prime Minister and Sheikh Khaled Al-Jarrah, Minister of Interior, to issue e-passports to all categories of citizens without them having to take the DNA test, Arab News cites Al-Rais as quoting security sources. But the Kuwaiti Cabinet said that the onus was on the Ministry of Interior to arrive at the timing of the issuance of the passport as a mechanism had to be instituted which should be in place following the National Day holidays in February.