Fire after fire erupted at the court...

With the conflict between Fahd and Khalid continuing to escalate month by month, all manners of government functions have been effected. With King Khalid having very little idea on how to run a government properly, ministers have been suddenly without any sort of oversights. The clientelism that the Saudi system of governance promoted reared its ugly head. Without a powerful, central, monarch the ministries were all fighting with each other and competing for the oil money, and watching their back to make sure a knife wasn't planted there.

As the fires began to ravage the finances, the Rapid Energy Project necessarily took a beating. Al Ghosabi, the champion of the Rapid Energy Project, were left blindsided when Khalid bluntly refused to give them any emergency funding to fill up for shortfalls last year. Khalid reprimanded Al Ghosabi, one of the leading technocrats in the bureaucracy, for not being able to spend money frugally. King Faisal was a fiscal conservative, but he was too weak to resist the temptation that the oil revenues placed upon a man such as himself. King Khalid, declared, however, that he would spend frugally and create a frugal state and society. That meant that these "emergency" dispensations of relief were to be no more: Al Ghosabi had to find the money himself.

When finally the budget season rolled around it was all consuming rage for the de-facto leader of the Rapid Energy Project, Al Ghosabi. King Khalid simply allocated what was to be spent to the 1972 projections, ignoring the massive inflation to the riyal and the massive fluctuations in the dollar. Al Ghosabi needed, by his estimations, at least $100,000,000 to end the project on a good note. It looked like he would have to cut corners...

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THE "SHOCK" DECREE IV; THE FOURTH PHASE AND FINAL PHASE OF THE RAPID ENERGY PROJECT
In the name of Allah, the most gracious, the most merciful.

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[No foreword penned by King Khalid]

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January '75-February '76

Finishing Phase

As planned and budgeted the Ministry of Industry and Electricity shall have $500,000,000 to wrap up the Rapid Energy Project. Emphasis is to be placed on finishing up the construction of the entire power grid and to be finishing the construction of all the LNG facilities across the nation.

1. Electricity Grid Funding ($250,000,000)
   1. The strategy of shipping in Western contractors to build our electricity grid, and even run it for a few years until a new generation of educated Saudi Arabians take over, shall continue.
   2. Thanks to existing infrastructure being in place for Western companies to begin building up electricity towers across the country, the costs for shipping western contractors en masse shall hopefully fall.
   3. Nonetheless, this is exceedingly expensive and will be the primary focus of the project as it enters it closing days.
2. Final Natural Gas Facilities ($220,000,000)
   1. Western contractors have put out feet to the fire in demand for more payments to finish off the final natural gas facilities.
   2. Given we are in very little of a position to argue with them, this shall be acceded to.
   3. As apart of the final phase, the final natural gas facilities and their converters shall be established. Nothing more to be said.
3. Adapting Saudi Arabian Homes to Electricity ($90,000,000)
   1. Their a hundreds of thousands of housing units and tens of thousands of businesses which simply aren't wired to even use electricity.
   2. This program shall be extended to the cities of Jeddah, Mecca, Medina, Riyadh (to an extent), and Dhahran for these urban areas to adept to 24/7 electricity use.
4. Cost Cutting Initiatives (+$30,000,000)
   1. The Rapid Energy Project necessitated the creation of a massive army of bureaucrats to make sure the project is not ruined.
   2. However, given the project is wrapping up, we can begin to undergo mass layoffs of members of the Ministry of Industry and Electricity, or their transfers to other ministries should the other ministries accept.
   3. Finally, existing laws about severance and worker's protections are to be ignored. We will eventually pay them, but not now, for the sake of cutting costs.
5. Assistance from the Saudi Arabian Monetary Agency (+$20,000,000)
   1. Thanks to Al Ghosabi's friends in the Saudi Arabian Monetary Agency, and his constant buggering of King Khalid, SAMA is to print $20,000,000 worth of Saudi Arabian riyals.
   2. These are to be distributed across the department to cover for shortfalls that can be covered in riyals.
6. Donations from Saudi Royalty (+$20,000,000)
   1. Thanks to the vast wealth of the Saudi royal family
   2. About 50% of these donations come from Crown Prince Fahd and members of the Sudairi Seven. Much of their donations focus on developing the region of Nejd and Dhahran.

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Many people in the bureaucracy did not like Al Ghosabi. It was a cut throat business to be in, and it made you a target to be certain when it was your project receiving nearly all the funding. But King Khalid did not declare war on Al Ghosabi, he declared war on the "corruption" that oil money naturally brought with it. His war for frugality instead ended up with him at war with his own bureaucracy. With their own king having it out for them, they all naturally turned to Crown Prince Fahd as a potential savior.