MPs lead call for anti-corruption drive

Efforts to stamp out official corruption have been hampered by a perceived lack of political will and the absence of a unified vision, lawmakers said on Wednesday. “Corruption in Jordan is institutionalised,” charged MP Zuheir Abul Ragheb, member of a parliamentary committee on legal affairs that is set to deliberate a new corruption draft law in July. “It’s practiced at the highest levels, and anyone who dares expose corrupt officials faces legal and illegal attempts to stop him.” Abul Ragheb went on to say that new legislation would not be sufficient to curb the trend, and called on the government to “combine legislation with implementation”. “Unless the government shows a serious willingness to exposes corrupt officials, we’ll witness an increase in corruption,” he warned. Abul Ragheb's concerns were echoed by other lawmakers, who emphasised the need to apply the law to all segments of society “without exception”. “Low-ranking employees are the only ones who face the axe,” said MP Fakhri Eskandar. “But what about the high-level employees who rob the country of its assets?” Representatives also say that the absence of “a clear cut” strategy and a “unified vision” among decision-makers has negatively affected reform policies. “We need to join hands and agree on a single strategy to uproot the corruption,” said Abul Ragheb. A draft law on financial disclosure was recently shelved after elected MPs differed with senators – who are directly appointed by the monarch – over some clauses of the proposed legislation. Senators specifically rejected an amendment requiring public officials, including lawmakers, to make their assets public before taking up official posts. Senators objected at the time that such a provision would be “unconstitutional”. In a 2005 report by the international corruption watchdog Transparency International, Jordan ranked 37th out of 145 countries in the world in terms of official corruption levels. The report by Transparency International ranked Jordan fourth in the Arab region after Oman, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar. The organisation defines corruption as “the abuse of public office for private gain” and measures the degree to which corruption exists among a given country's politicians and public officials. Many local observers, meanwhile, believe corruption – exacerbated by a deteriorating economic situation – constitutes the biggest challenge facing the kingdom. “It’s not an exaggeration when we say that corruption is the number-one national problem,” said Mohammad Amairheh of the Amman-based Good Governance Studies Centre. In 2004, the government referred 40 employees at the Passports and Civil Registration Department for accepting bribes and stealing official documents. Investigations revealed that the employees generated an equivalent of US $30,000 from Jordanian and foreign residents to issue them passports. But lawmakers complain that high-profile corruption cases are handled discretely. According to figures from the World Bank, Arab national economies lose an estimated US $40 billion a year to corruption. MBH/AR/AM