New ‘cities’ to house 250,000 workers

Labourers working on the site of the al-Wakrah football stadium, one of the Qatar’s 2022 World Cup stadiums, walking back to their accomodation at the Ezdan 40 compound after finishing work.

The cities, a mixture of government and private sector accommodation, will be built across Qatar, from the fringes of the capital Doha to one in the northAFPDohaQatar is to build seven “cities” to house more than a quarter of a million migrant labourers building major infrastructure and projects for the 2022 World Cup, officials said yesterday. They said all seven should be built by the end of 2016 and that the largest, “Labour City” for 70,000 people and complete with its own 24,000-seat cricket stadium, would begin housing workers in the next few weeks. The move to construct more modern facilities comes amid continued concern for the accommodation provided for the vast number of migrant workers in the state. In total, 258,000 workers - some 25% of Qatar’s migrant labourer population - will be housed, officials said. HE the Minister of Labour and Social Affairs Dr Abdulla bin Saleh al-Khualifi told AFP the new accommodation centres were the “future”. “That’s the blueprint,” he said of Labour City. “There are in the pipeline (several) cities around the nation. I know our people want to have better accommodation for their labourers.” Al-Khulaifi added that Qatar had effectively doubled its number of housing inspectors to 300, and that should increase to 400 soon. “We have labour accommodation standards and we are monitoring them and penalising those who are violating (the rules),” he said. “Our business community knows we are taking it very seriously.” The cities, a mixture of government and private sector accommodation, will be built across Qatar, from the fringes of the capital Doha to one in the north. Most will house around 28,000 workers. Al- Khulaifi said there was no final figure for how much the projects would cost. However, Labour City, with 55 buildings including a mall, clinic and the second largest mosque in Qatar, cost QR3bn ($825mn) to build. Most workers who will end up living there will be transferred from other accommodation centres in Qatar, but officials have said the number of migrant workers in the country will more than double to 2.5mn two years before the World Cup. Human Rights Watch researcher Nicholas McGeehan called the plan to build new accommodation a “useful step”, adding “we don’t want anyone housed in degrading conditions that we still see far too often in the Industrial Zone”.Arrested TV crew had no permits, says SCOfficials said yesterday that a German television crew filming a documentary in Qatar had been arrested because they did not have the necessary permit. The Supreme Committee for Delivery and Legacy (SC), the body responsible for delivering the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, said in a statement: “The journalist and the film crew concerned were not arrested as a result of reporting on allegations surrounding the 2022 FIFA World Cup Qatar or FIFA. Any suggestion to the contrary is explicitly false. “Any media outlet wishing to film in Qatar requires a film permit to do so, as is common in many countries. Any working journalist who has visited Qatar will be aware of this process and understand filming in specific locations without permission runs the risk of legal repercussions. “The journalist in question has visited Qatar several times before. “Furthermore, during the same period a second film crew from the same German network also visited Qatar, gaining access to numerous locations and stakeholders throughout the country. “To our knowledge they encountered no such problems.”