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Nearly 70 per cent of outstanding dues to contractors of public projects in Saudi Arabia remain unpaid owing to lack of budget for some projects, a newspaper in the world's largest oil exporter said on Sunday.
Although the Finance Ministry has paid billions of riyals to the contractors, it is still awaiting approval from the respective ministries for fresh payments for finished projects, Arabic daily Okaz said.
"Nearly 70 per cent of the dues to the contractors have not been paid yet because there is no payment order from the respective government departments," said Osama Al-Afaleq, Chairman of the Saudi Contractors' Authority.
He said some ministries and government offices have not issued the payment orders because they "do not have budgets for some projects."
"The Finance Ministry will release the payments only after it received orders from those ministries for their respective projects, but the problem is that some ministries refuse to issue such orders on the grounds that they do not have budgets for some projects, causing delays in payments," he said.
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