DURING the past weeks, a large number of Saudis traveled to neighboring countries to spend the short spring vacation. This resulted in long queues of passengers at all entry points into the Kingdom, especially airports and border crossings. The Kingdom shares borders with several countries and there were huge crowds of people at most of the entry points. Saudis crossed through the entry points of Al-Batha to UAE, Salwa to Qatar, King Fahd Causeway to Bahrain, Khafji and Al-Roqai to Kuwait, Jadeeda Arar to Iraq, Hadeetha and Halat Ammar to Jordan, and Al-Tawal, Al-Wadeea and Alab to Yemen. It is expected that the land entry point to Oman will be opened at Rubu Al-Khali region next year. Saudi families, especially women and children, faced a lot of hardship due to delays in completing their travel procedures. This is mainly because all these entry points do not have sufficient facilities and manpower to cope with the unprecedented rush of travelers during holidays. The electronic system at these centers is very slow and it takes too much time to complete the procedures of checking passports and IDs of passengers. The centers do not have adequate public utility services, especially toilets. This is also the case with most of the rest houses and mosques along the highways across the Kingdom. There are also an insufficient number of eateries and groceries around these entry points. This slowness and delay in completing travel procedures has been attributed to some other factors. These include the absence of separate lines for regular travelers and the new ones. There are also no separate lines for passengers from the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states and other countries. The professional efficiency of officials at the passport control division at the entry points is another handicap. Officials normally complete procedures after manually noting down passengers' license plate numbers. This can be accelerated if there is an automatic mechanism to register license plate numbers via a camera. The Arabic version of Saudi IDs also creates problems, especially if passport control officials are not native Arabic speakers. Unlike IDs of other Gulf states, Saudi IDs are not electronic and this creates further delays. The lack of IDs for Saudi children also creates delays to complete procedures at entry points. The Ministry of Finance should allocate necessary funds to improve the infrastructure facilities and utility services at these entry points. The viewpoints and suggestions of both officials and passengers at these entry points should be solicited with regard to improving services. There should be serious attempts to remove bureaucratic bottlenecks as well as to ease and simplify procedures at these centers. There should be qualitative improvement in the services and facilities at a time when Saudi Arabia is leading other Gulf states in the ambitious initiative to realize the goal of a Gulf Union in the near future.
