DOHA: The Supreme Committee for Delivery and Legacy has dismissed a recent report on 2022 FIFA World Cup projects by the International Trade Union Confederation as “factually inaccurate” and a deliberate attempt to discredit the Committee.
In a statement yesterday, the committee strongly denied the allegations levelled in the report, saying none had died on World Cup projects in Qatar.
The Committee said it was “disappointing” to read an entire section of the report “littered with factual errors and attempts to discredit the positive work we are undertaking. No one has died on World Cup projects.”
The most fundamental error in the report is the fact that the employee accommodation mentioned on page 17 is not where the construction workers who are building the new Al Wakrah Stadium, a proposed Host Venue for the 2022 FIFA World Cup, live. The report has described accommodations underneath the bleachers of Al Wakrah Sports Club’s current stadium.
“Our 108 construction workers live in a refurbished accommodation on Street No. 23 in Doha’s Industrial Area, which has been visited by TV crews from Reuters and ZDF in the past weeks. The International Trade Union Confederation never visited our accommodation, nor requested to do so,” said the statement.
Had the Confederation approached Al Wakrah Sports Club with their findings they would have learnt that the club is in the process of completing a new accommodation within the complex for their employees who currently reside in the accommodations mentioned in the Confederation’s report, said the Supreme Committee.
This accommodation, which contains 24 rooms with kitchens and living rooms, will be completed at the end of this month. Each room will house a maximum of two to three employees, it added.
“Our Workers’ Welfare Standards clearly regulate working and living conditions and are being implemented on our first stadium and accommodation sites…. Since January 2014, the Supreme Committee’s Workers’ Welfare Committee has conducted three successful inspections to enforce and monitor this implementation. The International Trade Union Confederation’s statement that our standards have no credible enforcement mechanism is hence both incorrect and misleading,” said the statement.
“We know that there are issues. While this process of change is not something that can be achieved overnight, we have the will and the commitment to see it through. We are already seeing the fruits of our partnerships with leading international organisations on the ground. We welcome further international support of this type in order to achieve our goals,” it added.
The Peninsula
