‘Fifteen vehicles to be cleared every five minutes at Nuwaiseeb border crossing’
KUWAIT CITY, Oct 12: While Nuwaiseeb border crossing continues to witness severe traffic congestion of vehicles entering the country from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the port’s administration has been mobilized to facilitate a smooth entry process by clearing 15 vehicles every five minutes, reports Al-Rai daily.
Director General of the General Administration of Ports, Brigadier Iyad AlHaddad, stated that obstacles should be removed at the entry port to make it easy for incoming travelers by increasing medical personnel and security officers.
In an exclusive statement during his tour of the entry port, Brigadier AlHaddad pointed to great preparations towards the reopening of Salmi border entry last Thursday after more than six months of closure, in addition to an agreement to increase the working hours from eight in the morning until six in the evening - in accordance with the plan activated in coordination with the Ministry of Health.
The plan or rather the mechanism will ensure the entry of 1,200 citizens and GCC nationals and 600 truck drivers at a rate of 15 vehicles every 5 minutes via the two ports.
Brigadier Al-Haddad continued, “We have received instructions from the Council of Ministers to open the Abdali port to export goods to the Republic of Iraq, and meetings with the health authorities and customs have taken place to put the final touches towards the opening, which is expected within days but we are now in the process of coordinating the PCR certification for truck drivers, especially those on transit”. The Ministry of Interior is fully prepared to act provided that the green light is given by the Ministry of Health, he noted.
“Since the beginning of the opening of the border crossings 15 days ago, we have been working at our full capacity to facilitate the movement of travelers, as about 16,000 travelers have been received at the ports (until yesterday), and adhering to the instructions of the Ministry of Health that examines travelers,” he noted.
For his part, Dr Bader Al-Tarrash of the Ministry of Health team supervising the screening of travelers at the entry port said, “What you see in terms of crowding and complaints from travelers is due to the high number of passengers, which made us call 13 doctors in Nuwaiseeb to examine arrivals, and at the same time, to speed up entry process of the vehicles to avoid creating more crowd”.
He added a mechanism and action plan has been developed to provide more than one clinic inside the port to examine travelers, and all those entering the country must download the (Shlonak) application before entering the port, provided that the traveler has a PCR test result taken not more than 72 hours ago, and the traveller must pledge to observe the home quarantine. In case of developing symptoms, the traveller will accept to be institutionalized.”
Al-Tarish concluded by saying: “There is a mechanism we follow to randomly screen one person out of every 10 people, and this procedure is currently in place to ensure that no one is affected.”