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Ammon News - The Lower House on Monday began debating the draft state budget and the budgets of government units for the fiscal year 2022, in a session chaired by Speaker Abdul Karim Dughmi and attended by cabinet ministers.

Estimated total expenditures in this year’s budget are at JD10.6 billion, including JD1.55 billion as capital expenditures, and projected public revenues are at JD8.9 billion, 68 per cent of which are taxes, 10 per cent external grants and 22 per cent non-tax revenues, with a deficit of JD1.7 billion.

It envisages growth at 2.7 per cent by the end of the current year, inflation at 2.5 per cent, and an increase of JD848 million in foreign grants, as it seeks to raise the ratio of domestic revenue coverage of current expenditures to 88.5 per cent.

It also forecasts total public debt will reach JD38.8 billion, or 114.7 per cent of GDP, to drop to JD30.8 billion, or 91 per cent of GDP, excluding the Social Security Corporation's debt.

Four lawmakers who took the floor in today's session assailed the government’s economic policies and International Monetary Fund (IMF) "recipes" that sent public debt soaring and led to an increase in poverty and unemployment, and the "erosion" of the purchasing value of the dinar.

They demanded salary raises for workers and pensioners, attracting investments, utilizing natural resources as well as setting up a development region for the Jordanian Badia and better services for citizens across the various regions.

Earlier, the MPs listened to the Finance Committee's report on the draft budgets, which was compiled after 46 days of meetings with more than 100 government and private entities.

The report said that the targeted 2.7 per cent growth will be impacted by several factors, including an increase in the allocations and incentives of some sectors and uncertainty due to the Covid-19 pandemic, underscoring the importance of revisiting investment exemptions and tying them to recruitment of Jordanians, in view of an "unprecedented" rise in unemployment rates, as well as creating a national database on poverty and defining needy families and individuals to direct aid for them.

The report also included 25 recommendations to the government, key among which is wage raises to pensioners and workers who earn less than 300 dinars, developing the transport, agriculture, tourism and energy sectors, reducing water loss, removing investment barriers, launching mega projects in partnership with the private sector, improving tax money collection, introducing a fair and comprehensive health insurance system and revisiting electricity generation agreements.