Okaz/Saudi Gazette JEDDAH — The Saudi Binladin Group (SBG) on Saturday started paying its employees their delayed salaries of about five months, giving them their checks along with their letters of termination. The payments were made at the company's head office in Hamadaniyah district in east Jeddah. A company's source said more payments were made and more termination letters were handed out to the workers, whose contracts ended with the completion of some projects. A number of the terminated workers, who were happy to have been paid their dues, said they would either look for other jobs with new sponsors or depart for their respective homes. According to recent press reports, the company obtained loans from banks at SR2.5 billion and sold some of its assets to be able to pay its workers. Abdullah Al-Olayan, director of the Makkah branch of the Ministry of Labor and Social Development said the company has paid more than 10,000 their delayed salaries in May and transferred the services of 16,000 personnel to new sponsors. The director said so far the company has laid off more than 69,000 of its workers. He said the ministry has activated its computer services to renew the iqamas of the Binladin workers so that their bank accounts are not frozen, but is still preventing the company from recruitment or change of job titles until their workers are paid all their dues.
