contractors suspended the already-slow progress of an SR81 million road construction project Wednesday for non-payment of dues from the principal contractor. The 160-km road project linking scattered villages with the Taif-Riyadh road was moving at a snail's pace, passing its deadline of completion by three months with only 60 percent of its progress completed. A source at the Road Administration has said that the principal contractor was given two years to deliver the project. Now a team of project consultants has been tasked to follow the case and take action against the contractor, the source added. Sub-contractor Sa'ad Al-Mutairi has urged the Ministry of Transport to intervene to have the contractor pay all late dues for the project to continue. The contractor has strung his sub-contractors along, refusing to pay them or even talk to them, he said. Another sub-contractor Mansour Al-Otaibi said that the whole project was entirely taken up by the five sub-contractors. The principal contractor had no part in planning, managing, or even monitoring the project, he added. “He just signed the agreement with us, yet he has not fulfilled his payment obligations,” Al-Otaibi said. The sub-contractors said they would not resume construction until they were paid in full.
