KUWAIT: The interior ministry has informed more than 10,000 expatriates about the cancellation of driving licenses they had obtained earlier, after a traffic department review concluded they do not meet the requirements for obtaining a driving license at the present time due to changing jobs or not meeting the minimum salary condition, which is a prerequisite for applying for a driving license.

"The notifications came as part of a continuous review of expatriates who hold driving licenses, a process that is still ongoing as ordered by the interior ministry, with the aim of verifying the validity of conditions as well as deal with traffic jams, as expatriates constitute the largest proportion of motorists," sources revealed to Kuwait Times. "Expatriates whose driving licenses were canceled have been notified via phone messages and told to hand over their driving licenses. Traffic patrols will issue citations to anyone whose license has been canceled but continues to drive with the canceled license," sources added.

The traffic department plans to issue new decisions at the beginning of next year related to vehicle ownership controls for expatriates, the first of which is to prevent any expatriate from owning more than one vehicle, a decision that was previously discussed by the supreme traffic council, and its approval was postponed due to technical circumstances.

"The decision will be applied retroactively, as every expatriate who has more than one vehicle will have their registration canceled. This procedure is a correction of a decision that was found to have many loopholes, which made expatriates own a large number of cars with the aim of illegal trading, which created chaos and circumvention of the law when transferring ownership or illegal car deals," sources explained. These decisions are in line with the government's attempts to rebalance the demographic structure and reduce traffic in the streets of Kuwait.