MAKKAH, 7 March 2007 — A citizen who signed a deal to rent out his building to a pilgrimage tour operator to house about 300 pilgrims is threatening to file a complaint against the Ministry of Haj for what he says is a violation of a contractual obligations.
“It’s been four months now and nothing has happened,” said Abdullah Al-Sifani, who says an official at the ministry agreed to help him get the SR56,000 he says he’s owed by the tour company. “Whenever I consult them (the Ministry of Haj) they keep telling me to come back in a week. I just wonder why they are not giving me my money and why are they ignoring the official paper that they have signed.” Nobody at the ministry or the tour operator in question was willing to speak on the record for this report.
Al-Sifani says that he signed an agreement with a tour operator (whose name is being withheld by Arab News because of legal considerations) to rent his building to house the pilgrims last Ramadan.
After keeping the pilgrims’ passports (thus preventing them from being able to leave the country), he says the ministry signed a contract with him to pay him the money he’s owed out of an insurance fund set up for the purposes of settling these type of disputes between tour operators and third-party purveyors of services, such as housing or transportation.
