On June 16, 2010, CIPE partner in Jordan, Al Quds Center for Political Studies convened a policy dialogue session on the National Budget and its impact on the deficit, debt and economic reform. Speaking in this session were Ibrahim Dweiri; Director of the Budget Office at the Parliament and former Director of the Budget Department, Abdel Rahim Bouqai; former MP and member of the financial and economic committee, Dr. Mona Mutamen; Deputy Secretary General of the Jordanian National Commission for Women, and Sami Shreim; the United Jordanian Front. The workshop was chaired by the Senator Hamdi Tabbaa; President of the Jordan Businessmen Association.

Main issues raised were the overgrowing budget deficit that has been in place over the past many years. Jordan has been suffering huge indebtedness that stands at 10.5 billion in 2010. This has been the outcome of several structural imbalances that the economy suffers from. Much fault was put on the “independent corporations” that have been created after privatization, and that still receive support from the state and create a burden on the national budget. Besides, these 61 corporations employ pre-state employees who make up almost 85% of their workforce.
It was noted that the parliament has very limited authority when it comes to discussing and negotiating the state budget. This space for negotiation does not exceed 15% of the total budget amount. Moreover, parliament recommendations are mostly discarded.

Analysts pointed out the need to monitor all stages of the budgeting process, starting with the foremost phase of estimating the figures, to discussing and endorsing the budget bill, to allocating the budget and implementing it, and finally, to releasing the real budget figures and the final accounts. It was stressed that supervisory bodies should hold the state accountable of its spending mechanisms. Independent anti-corruption bodies should be active in monitoring the state budget, in terms of actual figures of spending and publishing of budget annexes. Figures of privatized entities should be estimated accurately. State agreements of franchising should be reviewed carefully in terms of conditions put that confine the power of the state in endorsing any legislation that affects the agreements. Administrative and financial corruption could only be curbed if these measures took place.

The issue of gender budgeting was raised at the workshop. Thirty countries across the world have gender-sensitive budgets, among them are Egypt and Morocco. Workshops that raise awareness on gender budgeting are already underway in Jordan starting in early 2010. It was noted that Jordan lacks performance indicators in order to proceed with results-oriented budgets or with gender budgeting.