Alwaght- Saudi Arabia removed its minister of labor amid protests over the nonpayment of salaries of foreign workers in the country.
Mufarreji al-Hagbani was removed from his ministry only after seven months in office as he failed to solve the issue of unpaid foreign workers.
Through a royal decree, Saudi king Salman introduced Ali al-Ghifaidh to replace Hagbani on Friday. The government is yet to provide any official justification for the move.
Saudi Arabia has been plagued with a labor crisis where industrial firms have failed to either pay or provide basic amenities for hordes of their workers for months on end.
The companies, most notably the construction behemoths of Bin Ladin Group and Saudi Oger, have been hit by Saudi Arabia’s massive budget deficit in the face of its military campaign in Yemen.
The deficit, which shot up to 98 billion dollars last year, has worsened by falling oil prices, a crisis of Saudi Arabia’s own making. Oil revenues comprise 80 percent of the Saudi income but the country has been manipulating prices by creating gluts through overproduction.
At least 30,000 workers, mostly employees of Bin Ladin and Oger companies, from India, Pakistan and the Philippines are stranded in Saudi Arabia.
Last month, Pakistan said hundreds of its nationals, who have been waiting for months to receive their salaries from a Saudi construction firm, would fly home without any payment.
In other decrees on Friday, Salman removed the director general of the customs department and fired the secretary general of the Shura Council, which advises the cabinet.
Riyadh has spent billions of dollars to purchase various types of munitions from its Western allies for the war, which has been going on since March 2015. The US approved more than 20 billion dollars in military sales to Saudi Arabia last year alone.
