Ammon News -

The Cabinet endorsed a series of measures aimed at curbing prices hike of basic commodities in local markets.

In a session chaired by Prime Minister Bishr Khasawneh, the cabinet approved the adoption of ceilings for sea freight costs for the purposes of calculating taxes and customs duties until the end of 2021 to ensure that this measure is reflected on the end price of the consumer, provided that a defense order is issued for this purpose.

The measures include enhancing market control to enable the Ministry of Industry, Trade and Supply to take the necessary steps to set price ceilings on basic supply commodities when needed.

It also includes reinforce the strategic stock of basic supply commodities for the civilian and military service consumer corporations through the possibility of providing both of them credit facilities from local commercial banks for this purpose, in coordination with the Ministry of Finance and the Central Bank of Jordan, and mandating the Minister of Finance to carry out the necessary financial transfers to support the interest rate resulting from these facilities.

The cabinet decided to approve accelerating the implementation of projects that enhance food security in the Kingdom and contribute to supporting the plant and animal wealth sectors and mandating the Minister of Agriculture to devise an implementation plan linked to a time frame for this purpose.

On the other hand, the Council of Ministers decided to approve the agreement to be signed between the Ministry of Health and Sinopharm Company to supply 300,000 doses of the Covid-19 vaccine.

The cabinet mandated the Minister of Health to sign the agreement, which comes within the framework of the government's efforts to provide sufficient quantities of vaccines from multiple sources in order to immunize society against the Coronavirus pandemic.

In addition, the government decided to approve a draft law amending the Narcotics and Psychotropic Substances Law of 2021 in order to overcome the practical problems that hinder the application of some provisions of the law by detailing the criminal acts in the law and tightening penalties prescribed for these acts according to the gravity of the act.

The draft law comes to align the provisions of the law with the social, economic and technical transformations in the Kingdom to ensure the prohibition of manufacturing narcotics, psychotropic substances and chemical precursors for non-medical or scientific purposes and to expand the scope of control and criminalization of the use of chemicals from which narcotics or psychotropic substances can be made, as well as criminalizing the exchange of narcotic substances, whether in exchange of money or for free.

The draft law also comes to introduce detailed legislative texts regarding the criminalization of possession of any narcotic substance or plant, or psychotropic substances, and to criminalize the resistance of officials in charge of implementing the provisions of the law in any form, and to toughen the penalty for it according to the nature of the act.

The draft law expands the scope of powers with regard to confiscating illegal materials and the power to impose precautionary seizure on the funds of others if it is found that these funds were obtained as a result of committing any of the acts stipulated in the law.

The draft law also criminalizes the use of the information network or any information system or means of dissemination or media to incite illegal dealing with narcotics, psychotropic substances or preparations or their circulation, or encourage or support their illegal activities or facilitate their spread.