Alwaght- Thousands of expatriate construction workers, who were left hungry in filthy desert camps during the kingdom's economic slump, say they will not accept a regime offer of free flights home unless they receive months of unpaid wages.
The plight of the workers, stranded for months in crowded dormitories at labor camps with little money and limited access to food, water or medical care, has alarmed their home countries and drawn unwelcome attention to the conditions of some of the 10 million foreign workers on whom the Saudi economy depends, Reuters reported
Saudi regime claims it is trying to resolve the situation by giving the workers -- who normally need their employers' permission to leave the country -- the right to go home and free transport back. It is also granting them special permission to stay while they look for other jobs.
But workers say they fear that if they leave they will end up with nothing at all.
"We will wait here - one year, two years. We will wait for our money. Then we will go back," said Sardar Naseer, 35, a Pakistani welder at the Qadisiya Labour Camp, which houses around 2,000 workers from construction conglomerate Saudi Oger.
Naseer says he is owed 22,000 riyals ($5,900) after receiving no wages for eight months. Workers at the camp, about 20 km (13 miles) from the center of Riyadh, said they had stopped work about four months ago and none had been paid since January.
Oger, the family firm of billionaire former Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri, did not respond to requests for comment for this story. The Hariri family did not immediately respond to an e-mail seeking comment.
In July, Oger stopped providing food, electricity, maintenance and medical services at several of its camps including Qadisiyah, prompting the Saudi Labour Ministry to take over provision of basic services there, men at the camp said.
They sleep six to eight to a tiny room, with stray cats and cockroaches lingering on torn bedsheets. They sit on the floor to eat food rations provided by the Labour Ministry or their embassies.
There is no regular supply of clean drinking water -- a filter on a public water fountain meant to be changed daily has not been serviced in a year -- so they are forced to buy bottled water with their own money.
Saudi Oger, which employs some 30,000 workers, has built mega-projects including Riyadh's palatial 500-room Ritz Carlton hotel and all-female Princess Noura Bint Abdulrahman University.
It is one of Saudi Arabia's two most prominent construction companies, along with the Saudi Binladin Group. Both have faced financial difficulties as the world's biggest oil exporter has suffered from the fall in the price of crude.
Construction projects have been halted or slowed and revenue has fallen. As the salary delays have worsened, frustrated workers have in some cases staged rare public protests.
Countries including India, Pakistan and the Philippines have sent senior officials to Riyadh to press authorities to assist their workers. Indian officials said this month that more than 6,200 former Indian employees of Oger were stranded in Saudi camps after being laid off and owed wages.
This labor crisis is an example of the impacts left on the oil-dependent Saudi economy as the oil prices fell to lowest levels within a year. The kingdom is highly relying on oil revenues and so the sagging crude prices put strains on the finances and spending of both the government and the companies.
Last year, the kingdom introduced a package of economic reforms, dubbed Saudi Vision 2030, aiming at scaling down the government's reliance on the oil revenues. However, the economists have cast doubts on its practicality and efficiency at least in the short run as they saw it deeply difficult for Saudi Arabia to break up with oil money spending.
But this is not the sole factor sending the Saudi economy faltering. The kingdom has been engaged since 2015 in an aggression on Yemen. The war has entered its second year, and has taken a toll on the Saudi economy. Already a purchaser of military equipment and ammunitions, Riyadh has made further huge arms purchases from an array of weapons suppliers including the US and Britain, something made the companies, majorly construction companies, that employ low-paid Indian workers bear the brunt of the damage to the Saudi economy.
