By Mohanned

“…selling government land to pay off international debt, which Jordan recently did, has saved current and future generations from paying high interest payment on the debt and has made Jordan’s debt rating more attractive for international investment. And again I want to remind people that we have paid off $2.4 billion of our debt this year which resulted in reducing the percentage of international debt to the GDP from 46% to 29%.”—HM King Abdullah II in an Interview with Petra News Agency, 1 July 2008

Two years later and it seems as though all of these accomplishments have now been undone. Worse yet, we are now registering historic levels of failures on both the economic and political levels. Economically speaking GDP growth went from 7.9% in 2008 to 2.8% in 2009, and according to Dr. Yusuf Mansur, other economic indicators are not as “impressive” as one would like them to be. However, instead of taking responsibility for the bad economic policies which were pursued over the last ten years, our officials have found in the global economic crisis their best scapegoat.

On the political front, talks of reform have been flushed down the drain with the recycled elections law and the constant intimidation of the media.  The last episode of such interference came to forefront when Mousa Barhoomeh, Al-Ghad’s editor in chief was allegedly fired based on the direct request of Prime Minister, Samir Rifai.

About a year ago, HM King Abdullah II advanced the idea that there should be a sort of review of the first ten years of his reign. The review, at the time, was aimed at highlighting both achievements and shortcomings so that we as a nation could learn from our experiences. While rhetoric about reviews might suggest that Jordan is quasi-democratic—or at least a state accountable to its citizens—reality paints a different picture. One is inclined to believe that such talk is aimed at redistributing responsibility while trying to create the impression that all is in order according to some sort of master plan.

But is there truly control in our country or just mere impressions of it?

The idealist in me believes that a system in control is a system that has at its foundation both transparency and accountability. The control I speak of is control that is based on moral and global human rights not one based on intimidation, manipulation, and abuse of power.

Yes, constitutionally, the King cannot be held accountable. However, it is the government’s responsibility to make sure that the King’s directives are properly executed. Such directives are based on guidelines that are usually outlined in the designation letter sent by the King to the successive appointed governments. Yet, it seems that delivery on promises has not been the metric used to score and rate appointed governments. In a way, accountability of government, which is practically absent, applies to intentions, or, as in the hadith: “انما الأعمال بالنيات” – when taken literally. Of course when the reset button is as simple as a belated “reshuffle” or “dissolution,” the public is left with little other than the hope that the new government will be better than the old. It is rather naive to expect that a flawed system will somehow produce better results if we simply change the input, as it is to expect that unchecked power will not corrupt.

Accountability must apply to deeds, not mere intentions.

The fact that many policies have shifted throughout the years with no accountability being applied whatsoever, represents a serious threat to our country. We cannot simply “move on” and “be patient”. There seems to be a crisis of leadership in this country. We seem lost. We are disinterested and careless. We lost our trust in the state and its ability to deliver on its promises. We have been hearing the same rhetoric for too long. If only they were as good at delivering on promises as they are at recycling both empty rhetoric and state officials.

Our leaders must keep in mind that they can’t simply take credit for achievements and blame failures on other forces that are frequently said to be beyond our control. When governmental failures are felt on such a personal level, the state should not expect to be immune to public anger and frustration. Trickle down economics may look great on paper, but growth, which is primarily based on foreign aid and loans that are used to service a bloated government, means nothing to the average Jordanian. Economists agree that such approach of borrowing to finance a government that consumes 60% of the GDP, thus inflating the growth numbers, is not a wise one, to say the least. For example, the independent governmental entities grew over the last seven or so years to the degree where they now employ approximately 22,000 people. One has to wonder if those employees were used to artificially pump up the growth numbers over those years.

Improving the quality of life for citizens is what should matter most, not mere numbers on GDP growth. Policy makers should be able to answer questions such as: are Jordanians better off than they were ten years ago? Is education in a better shape than it was a decade earlier? How about health care? Nutrition? The environment and the air quality? Are we less poor in water resources? What has been done to make us a less thirsty nation? What about equality? Political rights? The right to be represented? And what about the use of $2.4 billion of privatization proceeds to pay off debts? Wouldn’t it have been better if such money was put toward education reform, infrastructure development, and modernization to make us a more competitive nation? Some might argue that less debt makes you more competitive. Maybe, but as we now know subsidies have been lifted and the privatization proceeds are gone, and yet, both the national debt and budget deficits have reached historical levels. We were told then that such measures will make us a less dependent nation. Are we less dependent now? How long can the status quo be sustained?

Do we, as a nation, have the ability, the will, and the resources to keep funding failures and those who are driving us downhill?
Adding insult to injury is the fact that incentives are almost always granted to the rich while the rest of us must wait patiently. Earlier this year the Abdali project, heavily funded by the Lebanese Hariri family was granted generous incentives that included exemptions from both sales tax and customs. On top of that, the income of non-Jordanians working on the project was also exempted from income tax! Talk about appointed elitist governments that work for the rich, are run by the rich, and yet funded by the poor! Yet, Prime Minister Rifai was audacious enough to claim that the recent tax increases were the only choice so that “our children didn’t have to pay the price….” I am not sure that the Prime Minister is in a position to speak of sacrifices or “our” children’s’ future. Such populist rhetoric is hard to buy from a politician who emerged from such “a long line of political heavyweights,” as the Rifai family was described in a recent issue of Jordan Business, “forging what some might dub a political dynasty of sorts.” [quotes from Jordan business magazine]

Photo by Faridon Abida

On top of all this our Prime Minister is boasting that his government has achieved 42% of their self-set goals in the past six months. Accountability to one’s self might work for some, but we should not accept such a system for the appointed officials in our government. This can be compared only to an education system in which students write their own tests, grade themselves, and then celebrate their good grades. One has to admit, however, that our government has its own unique way with numbers- math wizards of sorts. For example, poverty numbers were released and they were just plain shocking in the sense that they are aimed at drawing a disingenuous picture of this social illness, suggesting that earning 57JDs a month ($82) or more makes you officially NOT POOR.
However, this piece of news is what worries me most; patting the back of the government for their good work on transparency and delivery! There seems to be a disconnect, and dare one say disregard, for what the public feels. One has to wonder at what point will the “we know best” attitude be dropped? No wonder the comments section was closed!

The disconnect is further amplified in Fahed El Kheitan’s commentary which points to the fact that the last five years of the first ten should receive a capital F, with honors. He points to the foundational flaws in our system and the need for a major restructuring. The discussion of corruption and wrongdoing in Kheitan’s piece seems to be representative of the concerns of most citizens, and yet as recently as last month, the King suggested that talk about corruption tends to be exaggerated.

With the JD1.3 Billion oil refinery “corruption” case and the embezzlement in the ministry of agriculture along with the lucrative “privatization” deals one has to pause and wonder: at the top, what is the accepted and agreed upon definition of corruption?
Let me end this piece by the common Jordanian phrase:
يعني وبعدين؟
Translation: “Till when?”