Saudi Arabia has paid about $1 billion to Saudi Binladin Group, its biggest construction company as part of the kingdom's efforts to help the laid-off migrant community including Pakistanis to cope with job loss. Last month, the Binladen Group was paid between $800 million to $1.1 billion so that the firm could "honour unpaid wages." The family-owned firm is involved in construction projects such as the Holy Mosque expansion in Mecca and building Riyadh's financial district.
The payments were being made so that thousands of idled labourers (the migrant workforce) could afford to leave the kingdom. In the last one year, payments have been slowed down as Saudi Arabia's oil revenue diminished. A spokesperson of the Saudi Binladen Group confirmed the payments were made, but refused to provide further details, Saudi Binladin Group has dismissed more than 70,000 people in the past year, out of a workforce of more than 200,000, mostly from Asia and other Arab countries.
Unpaid or out-of-work labourers have staged sporadic protests, including setting fire to company buses earlier this year in Mecca. The group has also overhauled its management, bringing in seasoned executives to deal with the cash crunch resulting from a dramatic scaling back of government spending, according to bankers and officials briefed on the matter. One of the people briefed on the September payment said it doesn't resolve all of the group's problems. "This is a Band-Aid, this is not the final solution, it's only the start of what [the Saudi government] should have done a long time ago."