Jordan's Kasawneh promises fair election

In his speech to the Jordanian Lower House on Wednesday, Jordan's new Prime Minister Awn Kasawneh, said: “We won't make promises that can't be fulfilled”. He also presented his government’sministerial statement and its work plan for future. The prime minister for also formed a special committee to investigate the political corruption in the government's ‘Decent Housing for Decent Living’ initiative, which was revealed by the local media. Kasawneh promised in his speech that the government would formulate a law to create an independent body to oversee the elections, as was the cornerstone of any fair election. “Government will present, next February, a bill to the Constitutional Court,” Kasawneh said. He pledged that the government would present a bill in the parliamentary elections next March. Khasawneh also promised to submit amendments of the parties and municipalities law, to carry out the elections within six months of the amendments' approval and resume working in The Disi Water Conveyance Project and Red Sea-Dead Sea Canal Project. He also said he would search for alternative sources of energy and look for oil shale. Meanwhile, Jordanian Lower House speaker Abdul-Karim Dughmi formed a committee to investigate the ‘Decent Housing for Decent Living’ corruption. At a recent session, Dughmi authorised the permanent office to name deputies to begin an inquiry into allegations of corruption in the initiative. He said in a televised interview: “We made a file about this case, but we can not publish it, as the investigations are still secret. But any Member of Parliament can request to read it, as it is in the Secretariat of the Parliament.” He clarified that the file included investigations by the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC), which was submitted to the Prime Minister. However, due to the fact that former Prime Minister was one of the defendants in this case the file was sent to The Lower House. In this case, The Lower House had two options:  either to send the file to the Attorney General, or to form a special committee to investigate. After the debate in Parliament, a majority of MPs approved the second option. "Decent housing for decent living" was set to build 100,000 homes for poor Jordanians, offering them at reduced and/or affordable prices, with payments due over a lengthy period of time. The initiative was essentially designed to improve the living standards of poor Jordanians, building a declared 20,000 units every year. Documents referred to the Lower House pertaining to the 'Decent Housing for Decent Living' initiative revealed that two members of parliament owned three companies that implemented projects with a cost of nearly JD 90 million. The documents exposed that 10 companies received contracts to implement 15 residential housing projects within the mega 'Sakan Kareem' initiative, now smeared with corruption charges. Three of the companies were owned by two former members of parliament, who received JD 89,700 million out of the overall cost of the project, estimated at nearly JD 250 million. Documents revealed that the projects, implemented in five Jordanian governorates, cost JD 243.7 million up to the end of 2010, with the government spending nearly JD 131.9 million of the total cost after 8,456 residential housing units were completed by the contractors. The government still owed JD 118,800 million on the projects. Regarding the ownership of the contracted companies, the documents revealed that the two former MPs received the bids after they withdrew their names from the companies for their relatives at the time the contracts were being signed in August 2008.