Contractors delay 400 projects in Makkah

Around 400 infrastructure and service projects in Makkah are delayed, said an official at the Makkah Mayoralty. Several road construction projects, flood projects, works in public parks and gardens and the municipality’s utilities are running behind schedule.
“The mayoralty immediately addresses any delays or shortages by contractors, imposing fines or withdrawing the project in the process and handing it to another contractor,” said Makkah Mayor Osama Al-Bar.
Al-Bar said that regulations are rigorously applied and failing contractors are “blacklisted for all municipalities and mayoralties across the Kingdom.”
“The mayoralty understands that circumstances can delay some contractors due to obstacles that were not taken into account such as the emergence of services that need coordination and shifting.”
Al-Bar said that 6 percent of the current projects of the Makkah Mayoralty are worth SR 5 million each. Another 44 percent are worth SR 5 million to SR 30 million each, while 16 percent of them are each valued at SR 30 million to SR 100 million. Finally, 34 percent of the projects are each worth more than SR 100 million.
“The Reconstruction and Projects Agency is implementing at the moment 11 major projects, 147 road constructions, 158 gardens and municipality’s utilities, 14 urban planning and 68 projects to channel floodwater,” he said, adding that the agency is supervising 43 urban studies. The high price of real estate is among the main obstacles in the implementation of the projects.
Al-Bar said the support of the Finance Ministry is urgently needed to overcome these obstacles.
Other obstacles that Al-Bar referred to are the lack of accurate information about underground cables and connections such as water pipe networks, sewage networks, flood discharging channels, power lines and fiberoptic cables. He called on all parties concerned to build a detailed and complete database on these cables and connections.
“A study is being conducted at the Secretariat on underground tunnels for service networks to install the infrastructure according to global development systems,” said Al-Bar, adding that this will reduce the costs of construction and maintenance, facilitate future expansions and maintain network services and the flow in traffic.