Member subscriptions are among the most important sources of funding for Jordan's professional unions and their various funds, while investment returns are meant to serve as a supplementary stream that strengthens financial solvency and ensures funds can meet their obligations. Between subscriptions, investments and returns, attention turns to how these resources are managed, where they are deployed, and what impact they have on members' interests and the long-term viability of their funds.
اضافة اعلان
As financial obligations grow - particularly those tied to pension, insurance and social services funds - questions of governance and oversight become more pressing. Specifically, observers are asking whether investment decisions are made transparently, whether the criteria for selecting investments are clear, and whether funds adequately disclose their assets, returns and associated risks.
These concerns raise a central question: can union councils strike the right balance between preserving and growing members' money on one hand, and meeting current and rising obligations on the other? Where do member subscriptions actually go? How large are the investments held by professional unions, where are they concentrated, and what returns do they generate? And are investment and spending decisions subject to clear, effective governance and oversight standards?
Dentists' union head Dr. Aya Al-Asmar said the declining ability of union funds - including that of the Dentists' Syndicate - to meet their financial obligations stems from several interrelated factors, chief among them the nature of investments and the limited scope of core revenue sources.
Al-Asmar said most unions channel their investments into low-risk areas, including the purchase of land, but that returns from such investments are not stable, as they depend on market cycles and the degree to which union councils actively manage the investment side. She noted that while these investments contribute funds, they are not the primary source of income; funds rely principally on member subscriptions.
Difficult economic conditions, combined with weak fund structures and a growing number of professionals, have affected subscription compliance, Al-Asmar said. Although membership in the funds is compulsory, that does not mean all members pay what they owe, partly because enforcement mechanisms are weak. In principle, she said, a professional should not be permitted to practise unless registered with the union and current on financial obligations - 'and this does not happen in Jordan.'
She said some dentists continue to practise while their membership is frozen and their financial obligations unpaid, which has led to a rise in the number of suspended members and a corresponding fall in fund revenues.
Al-Asmar also pointed to rising numbers of retirees and their dependants as an additional drain on the funds, particularly given that pension funds now provide benefits such as unemployment allowances and early retirement. These obligations have grown at a time when fund revenues are already under pressure. She said there is also a fundamental imbalance: the total amount a dentist pays into the pension fund over a career is recouped within approximately the first three years of retirement.
'Everything a dentist pays into the pension fund over 30 years, he collects in the first three years after retiring,' she said.
Al-Asmar said continuing under the current structure requires a remedy - specifically, recalculating fees and subscriptions in proportion to salaries in order to increase fund revenues. She stressed that these combined factors have affected the ability of funds to meet their obligations, in the Dentists' Syndicate and across other unions.
Ahmad Al-Bu, director of the Engineers' Syndicate pension fund, said the syndicate's pension, social insurance and social solidarity funds have paid out more than 555 million dinars in total since each was established, in the form of salaries and benefits to members, beneficiaries and their families - excluding health insurance services, corporate social responsibility programmes, and professional and union services.
Al-Bu said that figure breaks down as follows: more than 500 million dinars in pension salaries; more than 25 million dinars in social insurance benefits, salaries and lump-sum payments; and more than 30 million dinars in solidarity benefits. He stressed that these are cumulative figures since the funds were founded, not expenditure for a single financial year.
The Engineers' Syndicate's financial and service structure comprises six main components: the syndicate itself, along with pension, health insurance, social insurance, social solidarity and corporate social responsibility funds. Each component has its own revenues, expenditures, objectives and eligible beneficiaries, governed by its own regulations and bylaws. Subscriptions are therefore not a single pooled resource serving one purpose; a portion funds professional and union activities, while other portions are directed toward retirement, health coverage, death and disability benefits, solidarity support and community services.
Al-Bu said the pension fund alone has paid out more than 500 million dinars in pension salaries and benefits since its establishment, benefiting approximately 24,000 individuals - including around 17,000 retired engineers and some 7,000 dependants of retirees, such as widows and orphans. He said this record reflects the fund's social and economic role over decades, extending beyond income replacement for retired engineers to providing financial protection for their families.
According to investment data provided, the pension fund achieved a compound investment return of approximately 4 percent over the period 1985 to 2024. Al-Bu said this figure should be assessed in the context of the economic and investment environment in which the fund operated, noting that the bulk of its investments are concentrated within the Jordanian market.
'Investment performance should not be judged on the bare rate of return alone,' Al-Bu said. 'It should be compared against GDP and its growth, rates of economic growth and inflation, the performance of capital markets, real estate and locally available investment instruments, as well as risk and liquidity levels over the same period.'
Al-Bu said that in the context of a small domestic economy with fewer diversified investment opportunities than global markets, the historical return reflects the fund's ability to grow its resources within those constraints. For a pension fund, he said, the most important measure of investment success is achieving a sustainable, risk-adjusted return while preserving the real value of assets and maintaining sufficient liquidity to meet obligations and pay pension salaries on schedule - not simply maximising returns regardless of risk.
The health insurance fund serves approximately 35,000 members and beneficiaries through a self-managed, non-profit structure, via a medical network that includes hospitals, physicians, pharmacies, laboratories and radiology centres, Al-Bu said. The fund has paid out more than 110 million dinars between 2017 and 2025 to cover medical claims and treatment costs, and currently handles medical claims of approximately 15 million dinars annually. He noted that coverage is particularly important for older members - including those over 65 - for whom suitable commercial insurance alternatives can be difficult to obtain and costly.
The social insurance fund has paid out more than 25 million dinars in salaries, benefits and lump-sum payments since its establishment, while the social solidarity fund has paid more than 30 million dinars in insurance benefits to members and beneficiaries. Al-Bu said the combined total from both funds exceeds 55 million dinars, reflecting the role of subscriptions in distributing risk and providing financial support to families when qualifying circumstances arise.
On governance, Al-Bu said fund management at the Engineers' Syndicate operates through successive levels of review, recommendation and approval, with fund management committees submitting recommendations to the union council. Within the pension fund, the land and housing committee and the investment committee each submit recommendations to the fund management committee, which in turn submits its recommendations to the council for decision within approved authority levels. The oversight structure includes an internal audit department, an external auditor, a senior audit committee chaired by the deputy head of the syndicate, and executive, strategic and risk committees, each operating within its defined remit.
'The effectiveness of this structure is measured by the accuracy of accounts, the documentation of decisions, the management of conflicts of interest, the handling of audit observations, and the disclosure of financial results and obligations in ways that protect members' funds and support accountability for how they are managed,' Al-Bu said.
Al-Bu acknowledged that the more than 555 million dinars paid out in pension, social and solidarity benefits reflects the scale of the funds' role over many years, but said this does not remove the need to address the current pension fund crisis. One reform priority, he said, is correcting the imbalance between the value of contributions and promised benefits, and presenting proposals to the general assembly based on actuarial assessment and actual funding capacity. The goal, he said, is to preserve services that generations of engineers have relied on, address sources of the deficit, and enable members to understand what they are paying, how those funds are used, and what each fund can realistically commit to.
Zuhair Muslim, a member of the Nurses' Syndicate council, outlined a series of measures and decisions he said were aimed at stabilising the union's finances, recovering funds, cutting costs and strengthening balances and investments. He said the syndicate had referred four files to the Integrity and Anti-Corruption Commission after completing supporting documentation, following a review that identified violations or financial losses.
In land transactions, Muslim said the syndicate discovered pricing discrepancies in the purchase of several plots. Assessments by valuers, the Land Department and real estate offices found that some plots were purchased at approximately double their actual value. He said contracts for the sale of some plots included provisions allowing buyers to return the land and recover the amounts paid, which led to refunds for members who had bought plots from the syndicate, including buyers of land in areas referred to in the presentation as 'Al-Dhurra', 'Burayqa' and 'Jureiba'. [Note: place name transliterations require editorial verification against official sources.]
On loans, Muslim said the total value of loans issued in earlier periods reached approximately 4.5 million dinars, covering multiple categories including investment loans, goodwill loans, education loans and others, issued - as the presentation described it - in the absence of adequate controls in some cases. He said there were 168 returned cheques due to insufficient funds, and that the syndicate offered debtors an opportunity to settle their obligations, while those who did not come forward were referred to the courts. The number of active legal cases at that time stood at 88, covering the period from 2018 to 2025. Settlement and collection procedures resulted in the recovery of amounts owed to the syndicate, with legal proceedings continuing against those who have not paid.
Muslim said the syndicate also returned funds to non-Jordanian members who had been enrolled in the pension system, after their inclusion was deemed an administrative error. Electronic procedures were introduced to ensure that no document is issued by the syndicate unless the member has paid outstanding annual subscriptions.
On staffing, Muslim said the syndicate and its branches previously employed around 50 staff, with some employees' salaries and associated costs exceeding 2,000 dinars a month, in addition to large overtime payments - one file recorded 18,000 dinars in overtime over two years. After a review of requirements, the number of employees was reduced to 18 across the main office and branches, overtime was suspended, and electronic services were introduced. The council said these measures contributed to cutting expenditure by more than 50 percent.
Muslim said weekly expenditure at the syndicate and its branches fell significantly - to approximately 300 dinars per week, compared with approximately 5,000 dinars per week previously. A solar energy system was also installed, he said, saving approximately 1,000 dinars a month on electricity bills.
On the revenue side, Muslim said the syndicate signed agreements with two banks that generate approximately 750,000 dinars annually for the syndicate, and sometimes more, with the two banks also providing financial support for a number of syndicate events and activities. He also referred to a national epidemiological screening project carried out in partnership with the Ministry of Health and the Prime Minister's Office, involving approximately 2,500 nurses, midwives, physicians, pharmacists and laboratory professionals, managed by the syndicate. The presentation stated that the project brought millions of dinars into the syndicate's treasury and improved its financial position.
Muslim said cash deposits held at banks rose from approximately 4 million dinars in 2017 to approximately 14 million dinars, with funds held at two banks. These figures were drawn from the financial report on which the presentation was based. He added that after 2018 the syndicate settled a number of outstanding financial obligations, paid retirees their entitlements, settled amounts owed to the Professional Unions Complex and dues owed to the International Council of Nurses, and refunded buyers who returned land under the terms of their contracts.
According to Muslim, the annual amount allocated to pension payments at the end of 2017 stood at approximately 261,500 dinars, rising subsequently to approximately 1,233,420 dinars. Despite this increase, the council said the syndicate's overall balances grew significantly over the same period. The financial measures also included the introduction of a financial and administrative system setting out roles, responsibilities and procedures, alongside broader digital transformation of services.
Dr. Mohammad Saleh Al-Tarawna, former director general of the Social Security Corporation, said professional union pension systems have suffered from actuarial imbalance for decades. He said subscriptions paid by members 20 or 30 years ago were low and did not correspond to the pension benefits those funds are now required to pay.
Al-Tarawna said the assets currently held by union funds fall well short, in most cases, of the obligations owed to current retirees and those expected to retire in future. Correcting the imbalance, he said, could be achieved by raising contributions and possibly reducing pension benefits - an option likely to be difficult and unacceptable to many members, who joined on the basis of a specific pension formula and may resist being asked to pay more for a smaller benefit.
He warned that assets earmarked for paying pension salaries will eventually be exhausted, saying some unions have already reached the point of depleting their resources and are now liquidating a portion of their assets alongside subscriptions, as contributions alone are no longer sufficient to cover pension costs.
Al-Tarawna said reformers face two broad paths. The first is what he called 'harsh reform' - raising contributions and cutting benefits. The second is to wind down pension systems, liquidate their assets and distribute the proceeds to members and retirees proportionally, according to the amount each person paid in historically. He said any such distribution cannot be done arbitrarily; it requires an actuarial calculation that accounts for the value of each member's contributions and when they were paid, since the present value of a payment made one year ago differs from one made two, five or ten years ago. He said accounting for the time value of money in this way is standard practice in pension funds worldwide.
This article was originally written in Arabic for Al Ghad. It was translated into English with AI assistance and edited by Jordan News.
