Sewage disposal hit by crackdown

Sewage removal services have been affected by the government's crackdown on undocumented workers because most of the truck drivers are illegal Eritrean nationals.
The drivers have stayed away from work because they fear arrest and deportation.
The trucks are categorized as heavy vehicles in a sector that has been earmarked for Saudization. However, there are few takers among Saudis for this job because it involves long hours and is not very appealing.
A sewage truck driver has to connect a hose to the sewage tanks of houses and siphon out the waste. Other expatriates are also reluctant to do the work.
Following warnings from the authorities, most of the drivers have decided to change their sponsorship to companies contracted to remove the waste. However, these firms are in the Red Zone of the Nitaqat system and are not allowed to take on more expatriate employees.
Abdul Monem Al-Shahri, director of the labor office in Jeddah, admitted that drivers have problems transferring their sponsorship to sewage removal companies because employers have failed to comply with mandatory Saudization quota requirements.
Following the crackdown, most Eritrean drivers were initially not willing to work. However, some illegal drivers are now taking the risk to carry out waste removal.
One driver, who did not want to be identified, told Arab News: “We are confused. We did not go against the system intentionally.”
With the shortage of sewage truck services, the prices have gone up, and drivers are not willing to wait at a house if there is any delay.
“Earlier, these drivers would wait if the path to a septic tank of a house was blocked by vehicles parked haphazardly. But now the drivers are not willing to wait.

They want the path cleared immediately or they leave,” said Ahmed Abdullah, an Egyptian security guard at a residential building on Gharnatha Street.
There are about 2,000 sewage trucks that take waste from houses to two designated treatment plants. Trucks transport less than 10 percent of the city's sewage. About 90 percent of the approximately 800,000 cubic meters of sewage is absorbed into underground storage tanks that have contaminated the city’s groundwater.
The National Water Company has started executing a sewage drainage system, with the first phase under way in north Jeddah.