Delay in salary threatens workers’ Eid celebrations

JEDDAH: The crisis of delayed salaries of the Saudi Binladin Group, the biggest construction company in the country, still continues despite the financial measures that were taken by the company to resolve this problem.
Around 100,000 Binladin workers are still waiting for their delayed salaries after the company promised to pay these salaries on Monday. However, the company failed to pay them, according to a media report.
The bad economic situation of Binladen workers has not yet been resolved. While they gave financial commitments for Eid Al-Adha, the company’s workers were waiting for their salaries on Monday to be able to manage their personals affairs for Eid. However, the crisis of delayed salaries has hit most workers in the construction sector.
The group faced a severe blow last year after oil prices drastically fell, forcing the government to cancel or suspend a number of projects, postpone payments, and stop new contracts after one of their cranes fell on the Grand Mosque of Makkah, resulting in the deaths of 107 people.
The acute shortage of liquidity forced the Binladin Group to stop work on a series of projects and relieve thousands of its employees and workers.
Many of its foreign workers have not received their salaries and were only paid a stipend amount to meet their day-to-day needs. Some of these employees, in an act of protest, even went so far as to burn buses of the company.
Workers of Saudi Oger, another major construction company, still suffer from the ongoing crisis as a result of delayed salaries.
There are 31,000 Saudi and foreign employees who have lodged complaints with the Labor Office about delayed wages.
The company stopped receiving projects after the government received complaints of nonpayment of wages.
Abdullah Radwan, construction committee president at the Jeddah Chamber for Commerce and Industry, said most constriction companies in the Kingdom have been affected by the low number of the construction projects. This why the sector has failed to pay salaries of its workers.
Speaking to Arab News, he said that construction companies have been forced to delay salaries of their staff until receiving their money from the government for their work on government projects. However, this crisis is temporary and could be resolved soon.