The fine and suspension was issued by the Jeddah Municipality, which has also decided not to hand the company anymore licenses until it repairs the damage it has done to streets in Jeddah.
The municipality has also accused the National Water Company of failing to cooperate in stopping the contractor from committing further violations.
The company, which mainly worked on sewage projects in Jeddah, is accused of causing sewage to leak on to roads and creating dangerous pits.
“The municipality imposed a hefty fine and ordered the company to suspend work following an influx of complaints about sewage and dangerous pits in streets in areas where the contractor had been operating,” said Undersecretary for Construction and Projects at the Jeddah municipality Alwi Samit.
“The situation was worsened further when the contractor refused to resolve the issues and continued to neglect safety regulations,” he added.
“The municipality noticed 20 instances of glaring violations by the contractor over the past two months, including large pits on roads in the Al-Safa and Al-Salamah districts and damage to sidewalks in the Al-Rabwah district,” said Samit.
He added that municipal inspectors found that the company was also guilty of dumping construction waste in a public park in the Al-Nuzhah district and cutting street lighting cables in the Al-Safa district. The contractor had also failed to renew its permit to work in the Al-Rabwah district.
“The municipality fined the company a number of times over the past three years, but it failed to pay up. The municipality also renewed the company’s license following a request from the National Water Company,” said Samit.
“This happened when the water company took an undertaking that it would pay the fines totaling SR1.4 million on behalf of the contractor. The authorities renewed the license but no one paid the fines,” he said.
He added that the municipality sent a memo to the National Water Company recently calling on it to ensure the contractor stops all violations and pay the fines.
Samit said no maintenance work is possible in the damaged streets and that the National Water Company should make the company repair broken sewage pipes.
