Kuwait: Kuwait to review 100,000 expat driving licences – Gulf Digital News

Kuwait: Kuwait to review 100,000 expat driving licences – Gulf Digital News

Kuwait’s Interior Ministry is set to examine driving licenses belonging to all expats obtained in ‘previous years’ based on the instructions of Deputy Prime Minister Shaikh Talal Al-Khaled.

Licences issued to expatriates from 2013 onwards – when new driving license laws were put in place – will be scrutinised, Kuwait Times reported.

In a move to solve the traffic congestion crisis, drivers who have obtained licences illegally or fail to meet the criteria, will have their licences cancelled.

Under current traffic department regulations, expats must be university graduates, draw a monthly salary of at least KD600 (BD727) and must have at least two years of legal residency in the country to hold a driving license in Kuwait.

The country has been overwhelmed with traffic jams, especially in the mornings when employees head to offices and students go to schools, as well as in the afternoons when they return home.

Expats, who make up some 70 per cent of Kuwait’s population of 4.5 million population, have repeatedly faced toughened conditions to obtain a driving license.

The interior ministry has carried out similar revisions in the past and cancelled thousands of expat licences on the basis that they had either obtained them through illegal channels or have changed