“I have been trying to construct an apartment building in the north of Jeddah for a year and a half and after hiring two different companies to do the work, I have been told that the project has to be delayed due to runaway workers,” Saudi businessman Saleh Badulan told Arab News.
He added that the building has been sitting untouched for the past two months as he negotiates with his current construction company to annul the contract and refund his money so he can hire someone else to finish the work. Workers are being encouraged to run away due to the large number of projects currently under way in the Kingdom. All are subject to strict deadlines.
According to Business Monitor International’s Key Project Database this month, there are currently SR300 billion ($80 billion) worth of projects under way in Saudi Arabia.
Arab News found that many local contractors that signed contracts with large-scale companies hire extra workers illegally in order to avoid hefty fines.
They pay them as much as SR200 a day for six hours of work to complete projects quickly, four times the daily salary laborers usually earn.
“This is what many citizens feel is causing the rise in the number of workers fleeing from their sponsors, in turn creating a new type of ‘construction workers mafia’ that has to be stopped,” Badulan said.
He and other citizens have called on the Ministry of Labor and Passport Department to join forces to investigate companies, establishing inspection teams to weed out violators and punish businesses for hiring illegal workers.
Building owners and developers have been calling for a law for many years to help crack down on runaway workers, but so far very little has been done.
“There is already a law stating that any company will be fined SR10,000 for each illegal worker they are caught hiring, while sponsors will also be penalized the same amount if they fail to report runaway employees,” Saudi law consultant Waleed Sheera told Al Riyadh newspaper. Sheera said he had asked the Saudi Arabian Monetary Agency (SAMA) to implement strict laws regulating wire transfers of foreign laborers.
He recommended that companies could create a link with SAMA to compare the monthly salaries of foreign workers with the amounts of money they are sending abroad each month.
Employees who send unusually large amounts could be flagged up as most likely to be involved in illegal work. He added that all this could be simply monitored using the employee’s iqama (residence permit) number.
According to the latest census in the Kingdom conducted earlier this year, there are currently 8.4 million foreigners in the country, with tens of millions of remittances sent abroad each year. “Hopefully, with a new minister in charge we can finally find the help we have needed for so long concerning many labor issues,” Badulan said.
