Saudi Arabia NEOM executives accused of inappropriate workplace behaviour, racism

Several senior executives leading Saudi Arabia’s NEOM megacity project are facing accusations of inappropriate behaviour and racism against staff working on various sites.

According to the Wall Street Journal last week, citing evidence such as recordings of phone calls, several senior executives of the project were discovered to have made discriminatory remarks against staff and employees.

The reported incidents include some involving international executive Wayne Borg, who is managing director of NEOM Media Industries. He is alleged to have said, “A whole bunch of people die so we’ve got to have a meeting on a Sunday night,” after three manual workers on the project died. He also described South Asian migrant workers employed at the project sites as “f**king morons”, adding that this “is why white people are at the top of the pecking order.”

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Aside from being reported to human resources staff after calling a Black female employee a “Black sh*t” in a separate incident, Borg was also reportedly heard in audio clips referring to women from the Arab Gulf region as “transvestites” and making vulgar jokes about Islam in relation to sexual positions.

Other NEOM executives were also alleged to have engaged in inappropriate workplace behaviour and discrimination, such as the megacity project’s chief executive Nadhmi Al-Nasr, who was apparently heard in a recording saying that, “I drive everybody like a slave,” seemingly referring to staff and workers.

In response to the report by the WSJ, a NEOM spokesperson said that, “Any allegations of wrongdoing and misconduct are thoroughly investigated. If any wrongdoing is substantiated, we take appropriate action.”

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