Compensation for demolished buildings around Haram delayed

An official working on the project to develop the surrounding areas of the Grand Mosque at Makkah has said SR30 billion of the SR90 billion owed in compensation to former property owners has not been paid out.
“Since 2009, SR60 billion has been paid out in four stages. The outstanding amount has not been paid because owners haven’t completed administrative procedures,” said Abbas Qattan, a supervising engineer.
Qattan said that the committee and the notary has assigned four judges to look into these cases and maintained that they were not to blame for the delay in payment, saying that legislative deeds or paperwork for inheritors were incomplete.
Qattan said the expected demolition of 13,000 buildings south of the Grand Mosque following the Haj season will not be assigned to his administration but that the project will be assigned to Makkah Reconstruction with a preliminary budget of SR 23 billion.
Qattan said road constructions under the supervision of his administration were awarded to Bin Laden Saudi Company, which is working on completing the circular road that extends from Bab Ali to Ibrahim Al-Khalil Street. In addition, he said, there remain only 20 buildings in the Ajyad neighbourhood, which will be removed as soon as electricity stations are removed.
“Some of these property owners handed in their paperwork and demanded payment only during the third stage of the project, which was rather unusual,” he added.
“During the fourth stage, we discovered buildings in Bakir Pasha Sabeel in the Al-Masfalah province. These buildings date back to the Ottoman era. We will not compensate people for the value of the land because they don’t own it; we will only compensate them for the remains,” Qattan said.
Qattan denied that his administration was behind delaying compensation payment for more than 200 buildings in the name of Bakir Pasah Awqaf. “The matter is with the general court. It decides whether to pay compensation for real estate, whether land, buildings or remains. Bakir Pasha Awqaf is a legitimate issue and the judge issues a ruling with a percentage that ranges between 25 to 75 percent,” he added.
“The highest rate of compensation was paid for an apartment building in the Ajyad province opposite Al-Safwah Tower, at SR 600,000 per square meter, followed by a neighbouring building with a value of 550,000 per square meter. The remainder of compensation, which began in the Al-Zawawi building in Al-Bab through to the Al-Masfalah province, reached SR 450,000 per square meter,” he said.
Qattan said the lowest rate of compensation for removed property was given for a house at the top of a mountain in the Al-Hajour province. Value estimation is conducted according to a certain mechanism and takes into account many factors such as location, proximity to the Grand Mosque and whether the land is mountainous of flat.