RIYADH, 10 January — The employees of Al-Bilad newspaper, who returned to work after taking token industrial action on Sunday, have rejected a SR500 advance as temporary relief. They say that the sum — less than one percent of the amount they are owed in back pay — will not go anywhere near to alleviating their misery.
A number of journalists at the newspaper, which did not appear on the newsstands on Sunday as a result of the day of industrial action, said they would stop working indefinitely if conditions did not improve in the next three weeks.
On Sunday it was the technical staff who did not turn up for work, according to a statement by the newspaper management. They said the Kingdom’s oldest newspaper has been in dire financial straits for several years.
Abdul Aziz Zaidan, director general of the Al-Bilad Newspaper and Publication Establishment, said on Tuesday that a decisive meeting of the shareholders has been called to decide either to liquidate the company or support it with a SR109 million injection which would settle overdue bills, including SR12 million in salary arrears.
The establishment has already requested emergency aid from the Ministry of Information. It is also approaching banks for SR25 million, in addition to another SR25 million from shareholders.
Even though losses piled up during the past 12 years, the previous management did not take any effective steps to improve the situation. The shareholders too knew of the situation, "but they remained silent — although several of them are prominent businessmen," according to Zaidan.
The board of directors called a general meeting in December. Regulations here in the Kingdom do not allow a company to continue to operate if its losses exceed half of its capital. Al-Bilad’s losses have reached 250 times its capital, which stands at SR850,000.
