AMMAN — The joint legal
and administrative
parliamentary committee continued its meetings discussing the
64 articles of the municipalities and decentralization, now called, ahead of
forwarding the version to lawmakers for debate.
اضافة اعلان
Member and rapporteur of
the joint committee, MP Saleh Al-Wukhian, told
Jordan News that the name of the
law has been changed to become "the municipalities and governorate councils
law” instead of “the municipalities and decentralization law.”
The lawmaker added that
the committee’s discussions have become more specific and focused, noting that
that their meetings with various local community representatives had ended.
"Now we have moved
to the stage of discussing the law in light of what we have heard during the
meetings with stakeholders. We have studied their opinions and are now
discussing them to approve the articles of the law in the light of these
opinions,” the representative said.
The deputy added that the
panel would need two to four meetings to wrap up its job, noting that it was
midway to completion, having approved 30 articles so far.
Wukhian explained that
the most important feature of this draft law is to give the power of direct, secret
ballot elections to the members of the governorate councils, in addition to
giving the council the right to appoint another group comprising individuals
already elected in other spheres like the chambers of industry and commerce,
the farmers’ union and other elected bodies. Meanwhile, Wukhian said that 25
percent of all provincial council members will be women.
The meeting was attended
by Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Local Administration Tawfiq Kreishan
and Minister of State for Legal Affairs Mahmoud Kharabsheh.
For his part, Kreishan
said that the law will enhance popular participation in decision making and
implement the principle of decentralization by transferring some of the powers
of the central government to the governorate councils.
Kharabsheh said that the proposed
law defines the tasks and powers of the governorate council (partly elected
directly), the executive council (a government body headed by the governor and comprising
the top officials in the district to run daily affairs of the administrative
unit), and the municipal council, also elected to administer the municipality. The
governorate council forms the elected legislative body while the executive
council forms the executive body. A municipal council is elected for every town
within the same governorate.
Observers look at the
decentralization experience as “successful on paper, failed on the ground”.
Stakeholders started to call for amendments to the relevant legislation to
remedy the situation. A 2019 academic research paper concluded that “as a
result, Jordan's local administration essentially remains dependent on the
local arms of centralized power.”
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