Jordan - Lower House continues deliberations over 2022 state budget law
(MENAFN- Jordan News Agency)
Amman, Feb. 9 (Petra) -- Lawmakers on Wednesday continued, for the third day in a row, deliberations over the draft laws of the 2022 state budget law and budgets of independent public institutions
Issues of citizens living conditions, hike in prices, high rates of poverty and unemployment, COVID-19 pandemic impacts and economic policies remained at the forefront of parliamentary concerns, in addition to an attempt to reach an agreement on the parliamentary request to increase wages of low-paid public employees and retirees.
During the Lower House session, headed by Speaker Abdul Karim Al-Daghmi, and attended by Prime Minister Bisher Khasawneh and the cabinet, lawmakers underlined the importance of shifting from the traditional method of preparing the budget to a programmatic budget that contains creative economic solutions to issues of concern to citizens, including provide jobs to the unemployed and improving the quality of services, in order to restore citizens' confidence.
They stressed the importance of achieving tax justice, controlling public spending, addressing the high indebtedness, reducing the debt service rate, collecting debts owed to the treasury, supporting agricultural and tourism sectors, reassessing water, energy and electricity generation agreements, raising women participation rate in public domains, disrupting freedoms, and stopping security bodies interference in appointment decisions.
Parliamentary deliberations also included demands for supporting the Jordan Armed Forces (JAF) and security bodies, enabling state media outlets to perform their duties, achieving comprehensive health insurance, improving health services, developing schools and education landscape and holding accountable those responsible for power outages during the recent snow storm, in addition to service demands in Kingdom regions and others related to appointment to leading posts, justice in the distribution of university scholarships and reconsidering the issue of jalwa (forced relocation).
A Lower House's Finance Committee report on both draft laws has recommended a reduction in public spending by about JD74 million, JD15 million from the total expenditures in the state budget, amounting to JD10.6 billion, and JD59 million from expenditures of government units' budgets, which amounted to JD1.5 billion.
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