Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s dream of a new Saudi reality is just getting weirder. Instead of improving his people’s living situation, MBS continues to spend billions of dollars hosting major entertainment, cultural, and sporting events as a deliberate strategy to deflect his image as a pervasive human rights violator.
This huge spending on unreal projects, while Saudi Arabia’s unemployment and poverty rate continue to rise, sparks widespread controversy in the Kingdom.
MBS’ Unreal Projects
King Salman Bridge project, announced by Saudi Arabia in 2016 to link between the Kingdom and Egypt, continues to trigger a state of ambiguity.
The bridge is planned to across the Red Sea to join the two countries, which will allow for a commute time between the countries of just 20 minutes.
However, the construction process did not start yet, despite the Saudi claims of kicking off the project.
MBS had earlier confirmed that laying the foundation stone for the King Salman Bridge between Saudi Arabia and Egypt will take place before 2020.
Unstudied Projects
An environmental, geological and seismic survey is needed to start the project as it is located in an earthquake-prone area. The bridge will connect not only the two countries, but also the continents of Africa and Asia.
The structure, to be named the King Salman Bridge, will accommodate road and rail traffic between an area near Egypt’s Sharm el-Sheikh resort and Ras Humaid in Tabuk, northern Saudi Arabia, across Tiran Island.
The part of the bridge over the sea will measure 7-10 kilometers (4-6 miles), and the structure’s total length will span 50 kilometers (31 miles). The bridge, to be built over seven years, will cost as much as $4 billion. Officials project the trade volume realized through the bridge will reach $200 billion per year.
However, the project faces some difficulties due to the long distance between the two sides, which is considered a real engineering challenge.
Fake Projects
Since taking office, MBS has made nothing worthful for the Saudi society but wars and crises. In contrast, Saudi Arabia has witnessed an unprecedented economic and political crisis.
In a failed attempt to cover up his failure, MBS has declared several projects to whitewash his dark reality.
Since 2021, MBS declared a series of fake projects that will never see the light of day, including:
1- Car-free linear city called The Line
2- Public Investment Fund (PIF) new strategy which will pump 150 billion riyals annually, and create about 1.8 million jobs.
3- The Saudi Green Initiative to plant 50 billion across the Middle East
4- The Saudi Green Initiative to plant 10 billion trees in Saudi Arabia.
5- Saudi Arabia’s Partner Program aims to pump 12 trillion riyals worth of investments in the economy planned by 2030
6- The Coral Bloom project to be developed over 28,000 km2 of pristine land.
7- “Invest in Saudi Arabia” fund
8- Saudi’s second national airline
MBS’ risky bet
The London-based newspaper the Economist has questioned the heavy spending of MBS over the past years, saying that a fire-hose of investment may transform the kingdom’s economy—or deplete its coffers
Six years ago, almost no one outside Saudi Arabia had heard of the Public Investment Fund (pif), an entity that held government stakes in blue-chip firms and had fewer employees than a typical supermarket.
Today, it aspires to become the world’s largest sovereign-wealth fund. It spent billions last year on foreign investments, buying stakes in Western oil firms and cruise lines and even bidding for Newcastle United, an English football club.
