Okaz 

 

 

 

Construction projects at the University of Taif have been experiencing problems that have slowed down their implementation. I am talking about all of the projects: the faculty members’ housing, the school of education building and the community service school building. Regardless of whether the university or the Ministry of Education is overseeing these projects, the fact remains that these projects have come to a complete halt after workers and engineers stopped working.

 

They stopped because they have not been paid for five months. It is not only the University of Taif projects that have been delayed. There are many projects for which the government has allocated billions of riyals that have still not been completed. The companies responsible are good at coming up with excuses to justify their failure to meet deadlines. Sometimes they blame government agencies because they have not been paid their financial entitlements.

 

It is sad that the university’s projects, at a cost of SR650 million, have been stopped due to the company’s failure to pay salaries on time. The engineers and workers have families to support and their salaries should be paid on time. It seems to me that many projects are suffering from the same problem, a fact which underscores the failure of the authorities to monitor the performance of contractors to ensure that salaries are paid on time. I am sure this delay in the university’s projects could have been avoided if we had monitoring regulations in place to deal with such situations.