Saudi Oger: the company in a huge financial crisis owes its employees salaries amounting to $800 million (SR3 billion), in addition to dues owed to contractors and exporters, and money to be repaid for loans from local and global banks.
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The King, in a series of directives on Sunday, ordered the Minister of Labour and Social Development to take necessary measures, in coordination with the Ministry of Finance, to oblige companies who have contracts with the government to pay the salaries of their employees in accordance with the government’s Wage Protection Programme.
India and the Philippines as well as their communities in the kingdom have rallied behind their compatriots at Saudi Oger by providing them food. French employees at the company who have not been paid for nine months have filed suits against the company in French courts.
The Finance Ministry has been asked to deduct the amount the government spends addressing grievances from the accounts of companies who have not followed the law. Meanwhile another junior minister M J Akbar worked the phones with his counterparts in Saudi and Kuwait.
The Saudi ruler has also directed the labour minister to coordinate with Saudi Arabian Airlines to transport workers back home at the cost of their employer if they wish to do so and for the country’s passporting department to provide final exit visas.
King Salman called for the country’s labour minister to address housing and accommodation services for distressed workers by contracting related firms. But in 2016 the GDP is likely to fall to 2 per cent. Khokhar issued a notice of hearing to the foreign office for August 15 with the directive to the secretary foreign affairs to notify establishment of the special cell in Pakistan’s Embassy in Saudi Arabia before the next hearing. In 2015 alone, Indians in KSA remitted almost 10.1 billion dollars home.
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Al-Haqabani as saying,”We again reiterate that this is an individual case mishandled by one company and does not reflect a general image of the labor sector in the kingdom”.
