Dr. Hamad Kasasbeh

Not all debt is recorded in the Ministry of Finance's books, and not every public obligation appears in deficit and debt figures. Another kind of debt accumulates quietly in deteriorating roads, ageing water networks, declining school facilities, hospital equipment whose maintenance is delayed, and public buildings that lose part of their value year after year. It is the debt of deferred maintenance: absent from today's budget, but certain to return later at a higher cost.

When public finances are under pressure, maintenance may seem one of the easiest expenditures to postpone. It is not usually tied to salaries that must be paid immediately or to a new project whose opening the public is awaiting, and a road, building or machine may remain in use even when repairs are needed. Time, however, does not freeze the condition of a public asset. A limited fault can spread, a small leak can continue, and a simple repair can become a full replacement. Deferral therefore creates no genuine saving; it merely shifts the cost to another year after making it larger.

Traditional accounts do not clearly reveal this obligation. The budget records what the government spends, but it does not always show how much value public assets lose because maintenance has been neglected. If a public body does not repair a road, building or piece of equipment, the unspent amount may appear to be a saving even though the state has consumed part of an asset for which it has already paid. The relevant question is therefore not only how much a project cost to build, but also how long it remained operational, what it cost to serve, and how much value it preserved throughout its useful life.

The consequences of deferred maintenance do not remain within the budget. A damaged road increases fuel consumption, vehicle maintenance costs and travel time. Weak water networks raise losses and the costs of pumping and supply, while deteriorating schools and health centres affect service quality and citizens' time. When a government platform, medical device or transport network fails, households and businesses bear part of the bill through lost time, replacement services or interrupted production. A cost that the Treasury does not pay today is thus redistributed across society and the economy.

Jordan's water sector provides a practical example of the economic value of maintenance and upgrading. Network rehabilitation, stronger monitoring, and the use of smart meters and control systems have helped reduce water losses and operating and energy costs in different areas. The importance of this experience extends beyond water. It demonstrates that preventive spending can improve service, extend the life of an asset and reduce costs at the same time. The same principle applies, to varying degrees, to roads, buildings, equipment, digital systems and other public assets.

Even so, new projects remain more attractive in public discourse than maintaining existing ones. Opening a road, school or hospital attracts more attention than rehabilitating a network, repairing a building or upgrading equipment. A new project is visible and announced, whereas successful maintenance is often measured by the fact that nothing failed. This preference can lead the state to add assets continuously while existing ones lose value because they are not adequately maintained. We then build more than we can preserve and later spend again on assets for which we have already paid.

The discussion can therefore be widened to the way public expenditure is allocated, particularly certain forms of general or untargeted subsidies that receive annual appropriations without sufficient measurement of their economic and social impact. Instead of allowing the less efficient portion of such support to continue in its present form, part of the savings generated by reviewing it could be redirected to maintaining roads, schools, health centres, water networks and public facilities. This would not mean reducing targeted support for eligible groups or weakening the social protection system, but distinguishing between support that directly protects citizens and broad subsidies that do not produce the intended return.

Such a reallocation may be both fairer and more efficient because the benefits of maintenance reach citizens and reduce costs they face every day. Road maintenance lowers transport costs, school rehabilitation improves the learning environment, water network upgrades reduce losses, and preserving a health centre improves service quality. Part of public spending would thereby move from a temporary or limited benefit to a public asset that retains its value and serves people for years. Any transfer should, however, rest on a transparent assessment showing the savings achieved, the assets selected and the expected return to citizens and the Treasury.

This approach does not require halting new projects or opening an unlimited channel for maintenance spending. It requires a different method of managing public investment. A project's financial responsibility does not end when it opens; that is when its operation and upkeep begin. Every decision to create a new asset should therefore include an estimate of its lifetime operating and maintenance costs, identify the responsible authority and specify the funding source. This perspective may change a project's design or timing, prevent assets from becoming obligations beyond the receiving body's capacity, and reveal that the cheapest construction option may not be the least expensive over the long term.

To make this approach practical, Jordan needs a national register setting out the condition and age of its roads, buildings, equipment and networks, together with the maintenance each requires. The register could include a maintenance-gap indicator measuring the difference between required and completed work and classifying needs according to risk, safety, service continuity and the cost of delay. Reporting this gap would not automatically add it to the public debt figure. It would acknowledge obligations that, once understood, can improve fiscal decisions, order priorities and link maintenance contracts to service levels and results.

Sound management of public money is not only about reducing what is paid today, but also about preventing larger and avoidable costs tomorrow. Protecting an existing road, functioning network or occupied building may be more valuable than creating a new asset because maintenance preserves an investment that society has already financed. Visible debt can be measured, scheduled and debated; deferred-maintenance debt remains silent until it appears as a failure, crisis or emergency project. Maintenance is therefore not a secondary budget item. What we do not spend today to protect public assets may not be a saving at all, but a deferred debt awaiting maturity.