Unsurprisingly, the American Wall Street Journal revealed that the completion of projects in the Saudi city of Neom is delayed, and that there is a mass departure of employees who suffer under the ambitious vision of the Crown Prince.
In a recent report, the newspaper said that engineers have struggled with demands to blow up a half-mile-long, 30-storey crater on the side of a mountain, to build hotels and residences and 10 palaces, each larger than a soccer field, with more than 50 different designs, at a cost of $400 million each, according to review of project plans and interviews with those who participated in the development of “NEOM”.
According to the newspaper, in a board meeting last December, MBS ignored city planners who presented other simpler plans for a pollution-free city, and asked them to think more boldly. “I want to build my pyramids,” he said, which raised eyebrows of those present.
Limited success
So far, it has had limited success. The total flow of investments to Saudi Arabia was about $ 5.4 billion last year, an increase of nearly $1 billion from 2019, despite the epidemic, but less than $16 billion a decade ago.
The sale of shares of the oil giant Saudi Aramco failed to attract large numbers of international investors after he placed a huge valuation of $2 trillion for the company and was not prepared to reduce it enough to attract foreign institutions.
Other initiatives have also hindered resetting the growth of the economy. Former King Abdullah’s attempt to build a financial center in Riyadh was 10 years behind schedule, as well as a project on the Red Sea, launched by the King in 2005, with the hope of attracting millions of residents, whose population does not exceed thousands.
Increasing Doubts
Some NEOM employees and Saudi officials say they are skeptical about the implementation of the plan. The kingdom’s sovereign wealth fund and Finance Ministry have already invested more than $1 billion in initial infrastructure, master plans, consultants, and employee wages; money some Saudi officials believe could have been used elsewhere.
Other employees believe that foreign investors would not buy some of NEOM’s proposals. They also doubt that the kingdom can fulfill plans for a new set of laws for the city to attract foreigners accustomed to Western norms, such as consuming alcohol or mixing freely between men and women.
Mass Departure
The CEO of Neom, Nazmi Al-Nasr, recruited dozens of senior employees during his tenure, but many of were not happy with Nasr’s management. Some have cancelled contracts worth up to $1 million a year. They added that others were unable to return to Saudi Arabia last year due to the travel restrictions by Covid-19, and at least one person was fired as a result.
Andrew Wirth, the former CEO of one of America’s largest ski resorts, who headed the planned mountain resort in “NEOM”, left in August after concluding that Nasr’s management style had “always included cynicism, rejection and inappropriate and offensive angry outbursts.”, according to a resignation letter seen by The Wall Street Journal.
Other departures included the CEO who was leading the development of NEOM Bay, the project’s investment fund, its legal team and its tourism department. Two chiefs of information technology, two heads of marketing, two directors of communications also resigned.
More: NEOM – The Lung Supporting the Survival of the Zionist Entity in the Middle East
