AMMAN (JT) – The Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) will refer the feasibility study of the Disi Water Conveyance Project to the court soon for suspected corruption, the commission’s president, Samih Bino, said on Wednesday.
In an interview with the Jordan News Agency, Petra, he said the commission will also examine irregularities related to a JD40 million tender that was awarded by the Jordan Phosphate Mines Company to a contractor.
He noted that other data indicated that some tenders, worth JD10,000 and JD9,000, were referred to contractors without going through the tender floating and bid invitation routine.
The commission decided to refer the case regarding the cost of the feasibility study for the Disi project to court soon after it discovered that “too much money” was allocated for the study, Bino elaborated.
Regarding the case of the National Resources Investment and Development Corporation (Mawared) which the ACC is investigating, Bino said that after investigating 88,000 documents, his agency found out that the company’s financial record books were incomplete while complete files were missing from 2007 to 2009.
Accordingly, the ACC had to seek assistance from security bodies to retrieve the files and obtain related bank records.
The official pointed to the company’s 15 local and international affiliates which, he said, have hindered investigations since some of these companies’ records were not locally available.
Investigations have so far revealed irregularities related to lack of corporate governance and carrying out projects and signing contracts at huge expenses without conducting feasibility studies, he explained.
During the interview, Bino also highlighted the substantial volume of corruption at the municipal level. A total of 60 complaints were made against one municipality in one month citing suspected cases of graft.
With regard to the case of the Decent Housing for Decent Living initiative, he said it was too early to decide that a case can be built against those in charge of the project, adding that the file is in the “first reading stage”. He stressed that there is no pressure on the ACC regarding the investigation.
He said he would resign his post if there were any attempts to influence the ACC decisions.
Bino stressed that members of the ACC who have had previous connections to certain files as part of their previous positions does not affect transparency in handling these files, since they have no access to these probes.
He called for a law that thoroughly investigates the sources of officials’ accumulated fortunes to protect public money in private and public institutions.
On the question of the mishandling of the privatisation scheme, Bino said the ACC is ready to look into any files that are opened, citing “a political will to combat corruption”.
The ACC, whose annual allocations stand at JD2.3 million, has 124 personnel entrusted with examining corruption cases.
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