MAKKAH, 24 November 2005 — A number of students at a teacher’s college called for the Ministry of Education to help them against the owners of furnished apartments, Al-Madinah Arabic daily reported.
At this time of the year, these establishments increase their prices to force them out so that they can rent the same units to pilgrims. This puts the students in a difficult condition because they come from distant villages and it is too time-consuming for them to commute to work on a daily basis.
Talal Al-Otaibi, a student, said that the college did not provide them with housing and he and four other students had to rent an apartment for SR14,000 per year. Although they had paid part of the rent, they had failed to come up with the remaining balance of SR5,000 because the college had delayed issuing checks. “Right now,” he said, “they are threatened with eviction and might have to live in the street.”
Al-Otaibi sees the only solution as being a loan from the students’ fund at the college. “Many students suggested that the students’ fund, which stands at over SR1 million, pays the late salaries for now until the checks are issued.”
Sulaiman Al-Otaibi, another student, said: “I had to borrow money from friends and relatives. Some of them had to sell their cell phones just so they could pay the rent. The owners of furnished apartments began sending us eviction notices because they wanted to rent them to pilgrims who would pay more and not us who are always late with rent.
“Delaying the monthly salary must stop because we have many things to pay for. These days we cannot plan on the checks coming on time and that puts us in trouble. If we ask for a loan from the students’ fund, we are greeted with these very long bureaucratic procedures.”
Ahmad S., a student, said: “We are facing two insurmountable problems every year. The first one is that of the real estate owners increasing their prices to drive us out from our furnished apartments to rent them to pilgrims and the other is that of the student checks not arriving on time. This causes huge problems for us because some of us have to go back to our villages and come to the college from there. Others cannot make it on time because their villages are simply too far. You would not believe that until now we did not receive the checks for the two months before Ramadan. I do not know why they are delaying the checks.”
