In the early 2000s, the Greater Amman Municipality (GAM) chose not to listen
to advice from a civil society organization about the possible infrastructural
costs of the Sixth Circle Towers project. Eager to score popularity points, the
municipality decided not to give an impact assessment report by a local NGO the
time of day.
اضافة اعلان
Reminiscent of
the governance style of most mayors who take the helm at GAM, an impact
assessment was not deemed necessary, especially if it threatened to cast a
cloud over a project that seemed too exciting to pass up.
GAM itself
should have requested the study, but making splashy headlines was more
important than thoughtful planning. So, a local NGO took it upon itself to
conduct an initial feasibility study and found that the location of the towers
would pose immense pressure on the area’s infrastructure and shared those
findings with the municipality.
Best to one’s
recollection, the report said that if brought to full capacity, traffic jams in
the area — caused by the influx of cars to the twin towers — were the least of
the project’s side effects. The pressures on the water and sewage networks
would be impossible to mitigate in an area with modest infrastructure.
The
infrastructure simply could not accommodate the stresses of a project of this
scale.
The Sixth
Circle, on the side of the towers, was, at the time, a residential area with an
infrastructure made to service households, not a mega commercial project. A
hotel was already in place, which maxed the infrastructure’s capacity.
Another
“discovery “ was made when the project hit the 20th floor: pumping water to the
tower’s upper levels was going to be a serious challenge, especially with the
area’s weak water flow.
Later on, when
the non-Jordanian investors decided not to finish what they started, a source
said it had finally dawned on them that the towers would not be as profitable
as initially thought. Renting every office out meant a large number of people
would potentially show up (and then leave at the end of the day) all in one go,
but the roads were too narrow, and the parking spots were too scarce.
This meant the
municipality had to buy out the lands and houses on the sides of the roads for
the purpose of demolishing them to create better flow to the towers, a move the
municipality had no money to achieve.
This fact would
discourage businesses from renewing their leases once inconveniences were
presented.
All of this
could have been avoided if GAM had asked for (or commissioned) a proper
feasibility study before rushing to show off the project in local newspapers
like it was the feat of the century.
To nobody’s
surprise, this is an archetypal scenario that keeps on repeating itself.
A few years
later, at a presentation by a different mayor, another bombastic project
carrying his vision for an “upper-scale” development was being marketed as
Amman’s next big thing.
Asked whether
the GAM had carried out a social impact assessment of the project, the mayor’s
response was not quite composed. Sounding visibly irritated, he snapped: “those
people” should find somewhere else to set up shop.
The area was
flanked by small shops belonging to lower-income Jordanians, but this piece of
information did not seem to interest him in the slightest. The gentrification
that could lead to the displacement of less privileged citizens simply did not
matter to someone entrusted with making Amman habitable to all citizens, from
all classes and incomes.
After a quarter of a century of top-down decision-making, it is time to give the decentralization project an honest evaluation. Meaningful reforms are about addressing distorted power configurations and rewriting the governance modules for Amman (and other municipalities) in a way that addresses the cyclic trends that keep on reoccurring.
Much like the Sixth
Circle twin towers, this project also failed to fulfill its lofty promise to
turn a certain part of Amman into the next “Solidere” (Beirut’s central
district). In fact, several years into its launch, the project still has not
lived up to the dazzling presentation made on that day.
In the bigger
picture, such behaviors are symptomatic of deeper problems weighing down
Jordan’s “decentralization” journey.
The Kingdom
embarked on the decentralization project around 25 years ago, in the mid-1990s.
The aim was to give locals living in different areas of the Kingdom a voice
through their municipalities, enabling them to tailor services to their
specific needs. Urban, rural, and Bedouin communities each had their own set of
priorities; decentralization was supposed to empower those communities by
giving them access to governance.
But on the
ground and in practical terms, small islands of authoritarianism mushroomed all
over the country, giving mayors the unprecedented power to embark on “vanity
projects”, rather than ventures that brought real income and empowerment to the
inhabitants of their cities.
Catchphrases
like “modernization” became the common excuse behind expensive projects that,
in hindsight, brought minimal (if any) benefit to their communities. Not all
projects were bankrolled by investors as some were paid for by the
municipalities themselves. As a result, millions of dinars in budgets allocated
to the country’s biggest cities were wasted.
In the case of
Amman, the GAM has the biggest municipal budget in all of Jordan. It also
enjoys autonomy in making decisions relating to the city. This independence
comes from the theoretical premise that decentralization gives municipalities a
freer hand to conduct good and effective governance.
But somehow, the
decentralization model got deeply distorted in practice. Mayors became
selective about what parts of decentralization they chose to keep and the ones
they disposed of.
Things like
autonomy gave them more power to spend their budgets as they wished. That, of
course, was the attractive part of the job.
Then again,
other aspects of decentralization — such as adopting a participatory approach
in decision making, involving civil society, and transparently sharing
information with constituents — were the less alluring parts of the course. On
the most basic level, bringing people in threatened their monopoly over power
structures. And since information was power, so was keeping people out of the
loop.
After a quarter
of a century of top-down decision-making, it is time to give the
decentralization project an honest evaluation. Meaningful reforms are about
addressing distorted power configurations and rewriting the governance modules
for Amman (and other municipalities) in a way that addresses the cyclic trends
that keep on reoccurring.
The autonomy that
Amman enjoys should be tied to an inescapable legal framework that makes the
participatory approach a requirement by law, not just an idea subject to the
whims of mayors and municipal councils. This would give civil society
organizations focused on the youth, women, and environmental protection a place
on the decision-making table.
The egos of
mayors and their undying urge to leave some kind of “legacy” behind should stop
being decentralization’s primary outcome. Decentralization without good
governance is all but meaningless; it privileges the few and alienates most
people, especially the underrepresented and the less fortunate.
Ruba Saqr has reported on the environment, worked in the
public sector as a communications officer, and served as managing editor of a
business magazine, spokesperson for a humanitarian INGO, and as head of a PR
agency.
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