Saudi Binladin Group to pay Egyptian workers’ late dues

CAIRO – 31 December 2017: Saudi Binladin Group will pay the late dues to all its employees including Egyptian workers under bank checks starting from Sunday.

Minister of Manpower Mohammed Saafan said that Labor Attaché in the Egyptian Consulate in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, Wahid Ghazi sent to the Egyptian Ministry of Manpower and Immigration, a list of Egyptian workers’ names who are included in the first installment. Their numbers reach 284 Egyptian workers.

Saafan remarked that Binladin Group stressed that in order for workers to receive the end of service dues, they should bring a waiver of the case filed against the group to the labor office.

Saafan requested both the consultant and Labor Attaché of the ministry in the Egyptian Consulate in Jeddah to follow up on the dues of Egyptian workers and to preserve and protect their rights.

The problems at the Saudi Binladin Group, one of Saudi Arabia’s most powerful groups at construction, started in 2016 when the Saudi government put sanctions on the group after a deadly crane accident in Mecca in September. These sanctions were preceded by freezing the group’s assets and banning its directors from leaving the county. The government has been slowly cutting the company out from the government’s projects, leading to great losses to the company.

Therefore, the company became unable to pay the wages of the workers and laid off 77,000 foreign workers after giving them exit visas to leave the kingdom. But, the expatriates began staging protests in Mecca and Jeddah, declaring that they will not leave the country before receiving their unpaid salaries.