: Family sponsorship minimum salary to be raised
According to a report in ‘Gulf News’ the laws regarding family sponsorship are to have some radical changes.
I could be jumping the gun here because if this goes true to form there’ll be a ‘clarification’ tomorrow.
But, today, quoting the Director General of the Naturalisation & Residency Department they report that the minimum salary requirement will be raised to Dh10,000 a month. There will also be a requirement that the family will have independent accommodation.
The new decisions will come into effect when the laws are officially amended.
The NRD says that the decision was made after a Ministry of Interior study on the negative effects of of families living here without sufficient income and suitable accommodation.
They say the minimum wage had to be raised in line with the increased cost of living.
It’s a difficult one isn’t it.
It makes sense to ensure that people should earn enough to keep their families, pay for health costs, rent and school fees. It also makes sense that they should live in reasonable accommodation.
But with so many salaries way below the new minimum an awful lot of families are going to be separated, and that can’t be good.
I wonder, too, whether families who are already living here but were sponsored under the previous minimum salary requirement will be able to stay. Let’s say the sponsor is earning Dh8,000 a month. That was enough to bring the family, but now it isn’t. What happens to them?
The reporter presumably didn’t ask that obvious question because there’s no mention of the problem in the report.
The ‘Gulf News’ report is here.
