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Yes, we are, but, the objective internal and external factors are lacking. While the internal factors preventing us from being an oil country are pushing against a constantly pressurized reverse dynamic, the external factors are forcing us to be where we are with the same pressure.

The circumstances in which we live in our surroundings, from the time of our forefathers to fathers and sons, do not allow us economically to be anything other than what we are. This is how we have been and this is how we will continue. With water in the mouth.

I know this is shocking, but it is the main reason why we, and no one else, are postponing many internal and external files until these conditions are addressed.

Whether consciously or not, we all acknowledge this and work on it persistently, so much so that I can almost say that most of the political and economic files were and still are driven by this reason.

But that is not the only reason. While our geopolitical position prevents us from wearing a Dishdasha, internally, as you can see, we are in public administration. And oil is not the inch of water we used to drown in. It is an ocean that will swallow us all.

In fact, the state of public administration in the Jordanian state is the same as the poor performance of even Jordanian civil society organizations. If you want to look at one of Jordan's largest civil society organizations, the Muslim Brotherhood. It has become tasteless, colorless and odorless. It is neither truly opposition, nor truly pro-opposition, nor truly centrist.

Any way. Let's leave aside the confusion that erupted about the availability of oil in the Kingdom in commercial quantities after a statement by an official at the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources, and then the ministry's clarification of the statement.

Let's also leave aside the clarification made by oil experts that we have gas whose market value is estimated at about $70 billion, and that it is enough for the Kingdom for 80 years, based on the government's statements, and that the government's statements hold it with great responsibilities, and came hastily and lists a number of reasons. And he is right.

It is no secret that our collective mind says that there is oil and gas in the Kingdom. But in our collective mind, we also have a confession the size of the Sharah Mountains that we suffer from an administrative fiasco that makes it impossible to take advantage of what we officially recognize as wealth in our land, let alone what we suspect!

The public administration confirmed many years ago that our land has many riches and commercial quantities. What have we done about it?

But what is worrying is that despite the positive bureaucracy that we supposedly dug with our fingernails for many years, what we have arrived at is not pleasing to friends.

 

Dr. Ahmad Al Hyari is a Researcher at Center for Strategic Studies - University of Jordan