Saudi Gazette report

RIYADH — The Committee for Studying the Conditions of Workers’ Housing has started preparing residences belonging to the Saudi Authority for Industrial Cities and Technology Zones (MODON) to be used as temporary housing for workers.

Earlier, government school buildings were used to accommodate the workers, with the aim of reducing the crowding in workers’ compounds, as one of the precautionary measures to stem the spread of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) infection.

The residences belonging to MODON that have been readied can accommodate 29,000 workers, the Chairman of the Committee for Studying the Conditions of Workers’ Housing Jumaan Al-Zahrani told Alarabiya.net.

Al-Zahrani further said that about 4,000 workers in Jeddah have been provided accommodation. They have been distributed among 45 temporary residences in schools.

He added: “Over 300 daily inspection rounds have been carried out to check the temporary accommodations till now.”

Al-Zahrani summarized the most important violations detected among workers in the compounds.

They included crowding in the bedrooms, lack of ventilation, and noncompliance with mandatory social distancing, despite the fact that each person is supposed to have a 4 sq. meters space.

He added that several other violations were detected, including not providing means of personal safety, like enough face masks and hand sanitizers in the rooms, nonexistence of thermal detectors in some compounds, nonexistence of isolation rooms prepared properly, and noncompliance with mandatory social distancing in the means of transport.

After detecting the violations and observations, the owner of the company was given 48 hours to rectify the situation.

Al-Zahrani further said: “Most, if not all, of the companies responded. They are all keen to implement the requirements. Many of them rent housing for their workers outside the laborers’ compounds with the objective of providing a healthy environment for their workers and all the requirements.”

He confirmed that the committee is working on securing temporary housing, amid the full support and facilities being provided by the government authorities.

Moreover, the workers themselves are responding to the committee’s visits, as they feel that there are authorities that care for them.