Crackdown on illegal workers delays road, canal projects

The crackdown on illegal workers has caused the slowdown or stoppage of work on canals being trenched for telephone and electricity cables throughout Riyadh.
The delays are due to subcontractors employing illegal part-time workers who have stopped working until they could correct their illegal status and continue working again after they have found for new sponsors.
The subcontractors must acquire their own workers under their sponsorship. But they could not get any workers recently. Most employers don’t have visas to recruit workers from their respective countries or any other manpower-supplying countries.
Assuming that they have visas, bringing the workers to the Kingdom could not be done immediately. Paperwork must be performed and documents prepared to comply rules and regulations before being submitted to a local recruitment agency.
Meanwhile, residents are complaining that unfinished canal trenching is causing inconvenience. Residents can’t ark their cars in their usual parking areas.
In some districts like Malaz, parking is possible but the canals are wide enough so that there’s the tendency that the wheels might get stuck.
“To make the bad situation worse, the streets in residential areas have literally become narrower because of the canals,” said Abdul Rahman, a Pakistani teacher in the area. “They used to be safe enough for both pedestrians and cars coming from opposite directions. Not anymore,” said Abdul Rahman, a Pakistani teacher in the area.”
Pedestrians must stop until all the cars have passed due to the narrow roads.
A visit to an area in Malaz area, just off Sitten Street, revealed a canal like a yawning chasm with no workers in sight.
“It belongs to the Saudi Electricity Company (SCE),” said a Pakistani who is in charge of one of the residential buildings in the area.
“The canal is intended for new technology cables or fiber optics for digital data transmission for communication cables,” said Eric P. Asi, a senior engineer for a local company. “The other canals in the area are for power cables for electric companies.”
A visit to another residential area not far from the Old Airport Road, also called King Abdulaziz Road, showed workers finishing a job for Mobily.
Work is also ongoing in major projects along Khurais Road, Exit 9 and 10 as well as along Dammam Road which has unavoidably caused traffic during peak hours.