Hariri faces new financial crisis

Former Prime Minister Saad Hariri is currently facing a new financial crisis, since his main financial source, “Saudi Oger” company, witnessed an economic slowdown after two residential projects for the Saudi Interior Ministry were removed from its agenda. The projects “Cap 1” and “Cap 2” were worth six billion dollars.       

Councils familiar with Hariri’s financial affairs stressed that the projects are under discussions, but “Saudi Oger” has not yet lost hope in taking them back.        

Despite the positive atmosphere, “a black future” is looming in Saudi Oger’s horizon, since it became almost excluded from the implementation of public transportation project in the city of Riyadh. The company would have gained 13 billion dollars from this project.         
In this context, sources close to the Future Movement stressed that what is happening with the company in Saudi Arabia does not hold any political messages, but it is just an alarm to warn the company against technical issues.           

The financial decline of Hariri’s companies continues, clearly affecting its activity in Beirut in general, and within the Future Movement in particular. Accordingly, the Future Movement’s headquarter in Spears Street witnessed last week a sit-in held by the employees dismissed from the movement, calling for the payment of their compensations. This has led Hariri to personally call the protesters through a speaker phone and ask them to end their sit-in, promising them to pay all the dues within days.              

Hariri’s advisers were able to set up a financial mechanism to pay the wages the current employees, after reducing the budget of a number of sectors, such as the media department.