By Khalid Neimat and Petra
AMMAN –– His Majesty King Abdullah on Wednesday expressed satisfaction with the government's programme for 2010, as Prime Minister Samir Rifai and his ministerial team presented the Monarch with an outline of the plan.
"For the first time, there is a clear strategy for the government," the King was quoted by the Jordan News Agency, Petra, as saying.
"If everyone works with transparency and sincerity, citizens will feel the institutional effort that aims to enhance living conditions," he added during the meeting held at the Royal Offices in Hummar in Amman.
The Monarch encouraged the government to work as one team, in order to best serve the national interests, and indicated that he would follow up on the programme’s progress.
“I will remain in contact with you,” the King told the ministers, adding that “we have a mechanism that enables us to measure the government’s performance and achievements during 2010”.
Rifai outlined the programme to journalists at a press conference yesterday following the meeting with the King.
According to the draft distributed to reporters yesterday by the government, the plan includes seven major components, starting with public sector development, a process that entails strengthening accountability and measuring the government’s performance.
The government will also focus on encouraging citizens to participate in political and civil life under the second aspect of the programme, which includes a deadline for holding parliamentary elections by the last quarter of the year.
As part of the same pillar, the government is also working to draft a new elections law and electoral procedures to ensure a “free and fair” voting system.
Under the third component: Encouraging the Business and Investment Environment, the government will review the roles of current state agencies concerned with encouraging investments, in order to integrate their efforts.
Higher education and vocational training development are among other aspects that the programme will tackle under its fourth pillar: “Enabling and supporting Jordanians’ competencies by providing them with needed skills to enter the labour market”.
The government will seek to stabilise the budget deficit at 6.5 per cent by the end of the year, and to reduce it to 3 per cent over the next three years, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of State Rajai Muasher said at the press conference yesterday.
Muasher briefed the press on the fifth pillar of the government’s programme, titled “Stimulating economic growth through implementing infrastructure mega-projects”.
He said there was no intention to increase prices of basic commodities “before studying the impact of such decisions on citizens”.
“The government will take measures to control its expenditures prior to considering such steps,” he said.
The programme will focus under its sixth part on “expanding the middle class and enabling and protecting the underprivileged”.
The government pledged in its seventh aspect of the plan: Enhancing Services for Citizens, to work for better housing, healthcare and social services for citizens, including the protection of children.
Rifai noted that the programme does not cover everything in the government’s agenda and that there are other issues and sectors that will be addressed later on.
According to the premier, the programme only provides an idea of the governments’ priorities, including the seven major aspects that cover most of the state sectors.
Referring to the government’s intent to demonstrate transparency, Rifai stressed that the programme “is available to the public and they can hold us accountable for it”.
During yesterday’s conference, the premier stated that “it is unacceptable to have independent official agencies with budgets amounting to JD2 billion and a deficit that hits JD300 million”.
All aspects of the programme are accounted for under the 2010 state budget, he said, noting that certain projects within the programme will start and end in 2010, while others will continue in the forthcoming years.
“We have predicted that 2010 will be a difficult year, but the country and its economy are in a good shape,” the premier said.
The Jordan Times
