AMMAN — The Lower
House continued discussing the two draft laws of the general budget and the
budgets of government units for the fiscal year 2022 during its session Sunday,
headed by Speaker
Abdul Karim Al-Doghmi, and in the presence of Prime Minister
Bisher Al-Khasawneh and a number of ministers, Jordan News Agency, Petra,
reported.
اضافة اعلان
On Monday morning,
deputies will complete the discussion of the budget laws, and listen to the
government’s response to their statements, before voting on the two laws, chapter
by chapter, based on the provisions of the Constitution (Article 112) and the
internal system of the
House of Representatives (Article 82), as well as voting
on the recommendations of the Parliamentary Finance Committee. By Sunday 98
deputies had spoken since the debate began last Monday.
In Sunday’s session,
deputies stressed on the importance of bringing about a qualitative change in
economic policies to bring the national economy out of a state of slowdown, and
the consequent serious economic and social repercussions, represented in the unprecedented
high rates of poverty and unemployment, in addition to the public debt which
had reached record levels.
They called for a review
of
government policies in order to enhance financial and monetary stability and
stimulate exports, push forward the wheel of economic growth and achieve real
growth rates that create new jobs. They called for reducing unjustified
consumer and government spending, shift towards progressive taxation, merge and
abolish independent bodies, in addition to strengthening social protections.
They stressed the need to stop increasing financial burdens on citizens,
removing all obstacles to investment and exploitation of natural resources and
to build support for political, economic and administrative reforms and
democratic openness, and rejection of the water agreement with Israel.
They demanded an increase
in the salaries of workers and retirees, stopping the sewage services tax in
areas where sewage service is not available, filling vacancies of the
Ministry of Education from those who have applied through the
Civil Service Bureau,
including all university students applying for loans and grants provided by the
Poor Student Fund while calling for increasing the fund's allocations. They
also called for granting approvals for delivering water and electricity to all
citizens, stimulating the economy to create jobs, developing alternative plans
in case the sectors are not opened due to the coronavirus pandemic, issuing an
amnesty for convicts, increasing the salaries of martyrs’ families, and looking
into the conditions of military retirees before 2012.
The speeches also dealt
with supporting the efforts of the
Jordan Armed Forces and security services to
preserve the security of the homeland, developing the tourism, agriculture,
industry and information technology sectors, addressing the weakness of
institutional work, the transition from academic education to vocational and
technical education, and consideration of excluding high-temperature areas (the
Jordan Valley and Aqaba) from the new electricity tariff, especially in the
summer. They also called for allowing productive economic sectors to generate
electricity from renewable energy, collect money owed to the Treasury, in
addition to meeting provincial areas’ service demands and upgrading and
creating administrative units there.
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