In addition to Saudi Arabia’s political and social levers, Muhammad bin Salman seeks to take full control of all economic levers in the private and public sectors.
With the arrival of Salman bin Abdulaziz in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in 2015 and the rapid development of Muhammad bin Salman in the pyramid of power and his becoming the second most powerful person in Saudi Arabia, he did his best to control the pores of power and wealth in this country. He worked to pave the way for the transfer of Saudi rule to the next generation.
In this regard, bin Salman immediately started the political repression of his opponents and removed or removed prominent political figures such as Mut’ab ibn Abdullah, Muhammad ibn Nayef, Ahmad ibn Abdul Aziz and Sa’d al-Jabri, etc. from their positions and placed under house arrest.
He did the same in the cultural and social space, trying to take the initiative in cyberspace advertising by employing a group of cyberspace activists known in Saudi critics’ circles as “electronic flies.”
The group has tightened its grip on cyberspace by stifling the voices of bin Salman’s opponents on social media and, in several cases, harassing critical media activists by torturing and imprisoning Mohammed bin Salman. Salman al-Awda, Awad al-Qarni and Muhammad al-Munajjid are among the cultural and media activists currently being held in Saudi prisons.
Some of Bin Salman’s actions in this area, however, had an economic flavor, which, of course, was followed by an anti-corruption cover, in addition to eliminating the opposition, to introduce the Saudi Crown Prince as an anti-corruption figure inside Saudi Arabia. In this report, we try to enumerate the dimensions of the current Crown Prince’s actions to control the pores of economic power in Saudi Arabia.
Bin Salman’s economic activities to dominate Saudi Arabia’s vital highways
Three years ago, Mohammed bin Salman gathered a significant number of Saudi businessmen and princes under the pretext of meeting them at the Ritz-Carlton and imprisoned them all for corruption. After months in this luxury prison, they were forced to give part of their assets as financial compensation to Muhammad bin Salman in order to be released from prison. Saudi Attorney General Saud al-Mujabb announced the agreements signed with some of these individuals for their release worth more than 400 billion rials ($ 107 billion).
Muhammad bin Salman’s financial empire in the private sector
In this regard, a site called Al-Khat Al-Baladah recently provided details and names of a number of Saudi businessmen who have been strongly supported by Ibn Salman, and after Ibn Salman’s arrival in the governorship, they have faced an astronomical increase in their capital.
According to the report, Mohammed bin Salman is seeking to establish a financial empire to create a class of sometimes unknown Saudi businessmen and princes who have his full support. These people have increased their wealth in a legendary way after the coming to power of Muhammad bin Salman. They have monopolized many large-scale projects, especially those related to the 2030 Vision and the Saudi Investment Fund contracts.
Yasser al-Ramilan, Khalid al-Faleh, and Ahmad al-Khatib are the three main economic pillars of Muhammad bin Salman’s hegemony over Saudi markets. They have monopolized the management and distribution of large-scale projects in the country and made these projects available to the people in question.
Saleh Al-Turki is a businessman and the founder of Nasma Co., Ltd., which is one of the most important commercial showcases of Mohammad bin Salman today, and thus has managed to obtain significant rents through the Saudi National Investment Fund.
Mashal Al-Kathiri is the owner of Al-Kathiri Collection. The company’s shares in 2018 faced a very strange growth in the Saudi stock market, which indicates suspicious and illegal transactions. The shares of this company increased from 10 Rials to 20 Rials during six months in 2018, and the value of these shares reached about 100 Rials in 2020.
Mohammad bin Abdullah Abuian is one of the main investors and owners of Aqua Power Company, which specializes in energy production and water desalination. The company is implementing 41 large-scale projects inside Saudi Arabia. The company was named primarily in the Renewable Energy Project based on Vision 2030 and was ranked 26th in the list of the top 100 companies in Saudi Arabia in 2019.
Abdul Mohsen Al-Othman is the head of Takvin Industrial Development Company, a company that suffered losses several times, but for unknown reasons, only a few years after bin Salman took office, his capital increased from 100 million rials in 2010 to 950 million rials.
Amer Abdullah Al-Zainal, the head of Zainal Group, is one of the most important investors and shareholders of Shisco Industrial Services Company, which has been expanding rapidly since the beginning of 2016 to increase the value of the company’s shares from 11 Rials to 30 Rials in just a few years.
Abdul Mohsen Al-Rashed is the largest shareholder of Cement Company and one of the shareholders of Neom project. After winning the 2030 Vision contract, the value of its shares increased to 3.3 billion Saudi Rials in 2019.
Ibrahim al-Hadithi is one of the owners of the Saudi company Sasco in automotive services and automotive equipment, whose shares increased from 10 riyals to 36 riyals in 2016, and in 2020 succeeded in concluding an exclusive contract for the import of equipment with the security services of the Al Saud regime.
Abdul Majid Al-Assaker is the founder of Al-Assaker Medical Equipment Company, and Badr Al-Assaker’s brother is the head of Bin Salman’s office.
Using these figures, who have his full support in the political and commercial spheres, bin Salman has extended his hegemony over the private sector of the Saudi economy so that he can use these levers to suppress his opponents when necessary.
The monopoly of the Saudi state economy in the hands of bin Salman
In addition to gaining the support of the private sector, Muhammad bin Salman has also taken over the monopoly power in the Saudi state economy. Many political and economic analysts are evaluating the start of projects such as the modern city of Neom in order to use the large and billion-dollar rents by Bin Salman. Meanwhile, bin Salman, as the first economic leader of the country, has put some dubious policies on his agenda, which seem to be done to control the economic levers of the country. One of these policies is the integration of the funds of the Saudi Pension Fund and the Social Security Insurance.
A Saudi economist told the Saudi news site Leaks that with this move by Mohammad bin Salman, the private sector’s concern over bin Salman’s control over the assets of the Pension and Social Security Fund has increased, and there is a fear that he will confiscate the assets in these funds by creating excuses and imaginary projects.
Bloomberg also reported on Saudi Arabia’s motivation to create a new economic regime with a capital of $ 29 billion in the way of merging the two funds, the news network further emphasizes that there are concerns that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman will use the huge amount of money to advance his failed and idealistic projects.
Bloomberg also emphasizes that the two funds have large investments in Saudi companies, including $ 8.5 billion in shares of the National Bank of Saudi Arabia and $ 4.3 billion in shares of Al-Rajhi Bank.
In this article, Bloomberg also refers to Muhammad bin Salman’s 2030 vision, which is 5 years old, and emphasizes that this vision is completely far from the social and economic realities in Saudi Arabia. However, one of the goals of this vision, which was presented in 2016, was that by the beginning of 2020, Saudi Arabia will be completely deprived of oil revenues and the Saudis will be able to live without oil, which is not only untrue. But the current realities show the increasing dependence of the Saudi economy on its oil.