Binladin Group had given the sacked foreign workers a permanent exit visa to leave the country
RIYADH (Saudi Arabia) – Employees at construction giant Saudi Binladin Group have reportedly set fire to more than seven company buses in the latest protest against alleged late payment of salaries and a reported 50,000 redundancies.
Mecca’s Civil Defense Major Nayef al-Sharif said no injuries were caused by the fires, and that firefighters had put out the blaze.
Employees at Binladin Group have staged several demonstrations within Saudi Arabia’s Mecca region in recent weeks, with some claiming they have not received their wages for six months.
The company, which was established in 1931 by the father of the late Al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden, is one of Saudi Arabia’s largest employers and it has been responsible for large construction projects including building towers in the capital Riyadh, and universities and airports in the western port city of Jeddah.
The Saudi government suspended the company from taking on further contracts in September 2015 after a crane collapsed in the city of Mecca, killing 107 people.
Saudi daily al-Watan reported that Binladin had given the sacked foreign workers a permanent exit visa to leave the country but many of them do not want to leave because they claim not to have been paid properly.
Watan said some of the workers had not been paid in at least four months, and that they are now holding daily protests in front of the company’s offices.
Saudi Arabia has been forced to cut its government spending as oil prices, which account for the majority of the kingdom’s income, have plummeted by up to 70 percent in two years. The Binladin group has not issued a statement about the reported sacking and the pay dispute with workers.
It is one of the biggest construction firms in the world and has around 200,000 workers, according to its LinkedIn page.