Saudi prince's palace in Morocco faces protests over non-payment for work

Moroccan workers and companies have staged a sit-in in front of a Saudi prince's palace in the coastal city of Tangier to condemn non-payment for their work by the Saudi Arabian company overseeing the project.

According to Moroccan website bladi, the workers are demanding more than 12 million dirhams ($1,319,280) for works carried out inside the palace, including repairs and maintenance, mosaics and marble work, as well as landscaping.

The protest on Monday was organised after a series of fruitless exchanges with the company, which is accused of delaying its financial commitments.

While the name of the prince has not been released due to the confidentiality clauses that companies must sign, a previous report by a Spanish media outlet in May indicated that two palaces were built in Tangier for King Salman and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

According to Cope, the palaces were completed in 2023 but Saudi authorities had yet to pay their “multimillion” dollar debts to Moroccan companies involved in the work.

The delay, according to the Spanish media, had caused "malaise" in the construction sector in Tangier, where companies were facing serious financial difficulties.

Local companies had taken on initial costs for which they have not been reimbursed, creating a knock-on effect for local workers and suppliers.

The Spanish outlet said that the Saudi default had raised questions about the monarchy's ability to honour its financial commitments.

‘They don't like to have the same decor’

Saudi Arabia's finances have been strained significantly by a fall in crude oil prices in recent months, and the Gulf kingdom has had to scale back on costly projects, such as the futuristic city megaproject Neom.

In Morocco, Saudi princes own several luxurious properties, whose exact number and legal owners are difficult to specify, due to the secrecy involved in their commissioning.

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According to the Moroccan media outlet Tel Quel, the Saudi royal family owns around 10 compounds, ranging from villas to palaces.

In Casablanca, high-placed Saudis built a palace surrounded by a mosque and a library near the Corniche.

According to a Tel Quel source who worked on the project, an underground passage was designed to connect the palace to the sea, to enable the family to escape in the event of an attack.

King Salman owns a palace and a residence in Tangier, while some princes own a palace in Bouskoura, south of Casablanca, that a Tel Quel source described as one of the most beautiful in Africa.

Renovations are carried out there each time the owners visit because "they don't like to come back and have the same decor", the source said.

The Saudi royal family also owns a palace and a residence in the Fez region that was built in the 1980s, during the reign of King Fahd, as well as the palace of Prince Bandar bin Sultan in the capital, Rabat.