MAKKAH: Hundreds of workers at the Grand Mosque are threatening to file a lawsuit against the Presidency of the Two Holy Mosques, the department that oversees the running of the Grand Mosque and the Prophet’s Mosque in Madinah, unless it provides them with parking facilities when they come to work.
The workers allege that the authorities have rented out a portion of its parking space to a private company.
“The presidency has not only prevented us from parking our cars in the parking lots that it has, but also rented a major portion of the lots for use by the company’s employees. The remaining portion is used by senior presidency officials,” one of the 200 workers told Arab News.
The disgruntled employees, who run various departments of the Grand Mosque, said they have been using presidency car parks for several years.
“Now the presidency is allowing only about 15 people who work the night shift from 8.30 p.m. to 2.30 a.m. to park their cars at its parking lots,” one of them said.
“We were shocked when we were asked, without any prior notice, not to park our cars there. We’re now forced to park our cars on public roads and streets, which results in them being towed away by the traffic police. We’re also often slapped hefty fines,” said the worker.
“The presidency owns four car parks in the central region of Makkah. These parking lots have still not been used and employees are not permitted to park there. We don’t know what the reason behind this is,” said another.
