JEDDAH, 28 January — A Saudi building owner plans to take legal action to make the diplomatic mission of an African country here pay rent arrears running into several thousand riyals.
The Consulate General of Comoro Islands rented a building belonging to Abdullah Yaghmore several years ago. Since 1997, the consulate has not paid the rent, which has now accumulated to SR327,000, according to Yaghmore. In a letter to him, the Comoros government admitted that it owed the money and said that it had taken steps to make the payment.
Comoros is a small island of 2.170 square kilometers with a population of half a million.
Yaghmore has decided to file the case in a Shariah court with the help of the Saudi Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
The ministry has demanded that the Comoros mission settle the issue immediately, as diplomatic immunity cannot be claimed if judicial procedures have been instigated. If a service provider seeks legal help against the failure on the part of the mission to pay for the services, the ministry cannot be held responsible for the ensuing legal steps, the ministry said.
The Comoros Embassy in Riyadh said its government acknowledged that it owes the Saudi citizen, Yaghmore, 24 million Comoros francs (SR327,000). But in a letter sent to him later, the Ministry of Finance of Comoros said the arrears was only 327,000 Comoros francs.
Yaghmore said he believed in the beginning that the default was temporary and that the consulate would resume payment. But since no payment was in fact made over a very long period, he asked the consulate to vacate the building.
Consulate officials advised him to go to the island and collect the money from there. Although he dutifully traveled there and met the island’s finance minister and other senior officials, he was paid only a small fraction of the total amount owed.
