Stranded in Saudi Arabia: Workers concerns mount each day

SBG employees say the company has declared it is no longer responsible for them

KARACHI: With each day passing, the concerns of the Pakistani expatriate workers -- stranded in Saudi Arabia for over six months without salaries and renewed work permits -- are mounting. They have not sent their families any money for months and are now worried how their families will celebrate the approaching Eid festival.

Employed by Empower Contracting – a subsidiary of construction conglomerate Saudi Binladen Group (SBG) – a group of 350 workers has been forced to live within the walls of their compound in a company-provided residential camp, called Harisul Watni, in Riyadh.

Among them, 50 are Pakistanis while the rest are Indians, Indonesians, Filipinos and others. All of them have not received their salaries for at least seven to eight months. According to them, they have not even been fed properly by the company which owes them large sums.

"After waiting for months, we have been told by the company that it has no responsibility with regard to us. Our salaries are overdue. Our gratuity and other funds are overdue. And they say we are no longer their responsibility," said a worker in a video message available with The Express Tribune.

The issue of the salaries of workers pending with the SBG is more than a year old.



In May, 2016, a Saudi Criminal Court in Makkah awarded prison terms and flogging punishments to 49 expatriate workers employed by the same group for rioting over non-payment of their salaries, Saudi newspaper Arab News had reported. Some of the workers punished by the court were Pakistanis.

According to the workers, whose identities have been withheld to protect them from any action by the employing company, neither their salaries have been paid to them nor have their iqamas been renewed. “We cannot even leave without our iqamas. Khurooj (exit) is not possible without it,” a worker said.

In pictures and videos shared with The Express Tribune, the workers are seen protesting before a company official, identified as Osama – seated behind the driving wheel of a Toyota Prado – for his reported comments that he is not responsible for the workers and they can go to courts if they want to.

Workers say they have been going through hard times and have gone broke. “We don’t know what our families are going through nor do they know about us. Some of us are suffering from chronic ailments like heart and kidney diseases, but there is no medical facility for us,” said a worker.

Pakistani and Indian workers have complained that even their embassies have not listened to their concerns and have returned them, saying that they could not interfere in these matters. “We want authorities to take notice of the situation we have been put into by our Saudi employers,” he sobbed.



According to an SBG official, the group was involved in the expansion project of the Holy Mosque. However, since the Saudi government has stopped paying it for its services, it has also stopped its operation and now the work on the holy site has come to a halt.

“In this whole scenario, the lower tier of workers which is mainly composed of expatriates is badly affected,” he added.

The Express Tribune contacted the Empower Power Contracting for its version on the issue. However, it did not respond.

Nasir Mansoor, deputy general secretary of the National Trade Union Federation, criticised the SBG as well as the governments in Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and other countries for taking the workers’ lives for granted.

“It is a pity that these conglomerates and governments don’t care about workers on whose labour they depend for their wealth,” he said.