By Muhammad Aburumman
The last official wonder is that fatwa issued by the Council of National Information and published by "Ammon", which rejects a request by some legal researcher to unveil the extent to which the government followed the legal and administrative criteria when it hired Maen Qatamin, the brother of the minister of labor, as a special director to the Office of the prime minister two months ago.
The council said that this information is “confidential", giving the prime ministry the right to "withhold information"!
The only person who hedged against the decision, according to Ammon’s report, is Dr. Mousa Breizat, the representative of the National Council for Human Rights; he considered this rejection in violation of the international criteria, while the rest of the council’s members (two were absent) signed this weird fatwa.
If there is any proper description for that, it is that this is a national scandal par excellence; for the government and those who signed it, and reflects the official disregard for public opinion and of transparency.
The irony is that Maen Qatamin resigned, only two months after. He then was hired in an official position, which was introduced for him, and placed under the responsibility head of units at the prime ministry, then resign from his post, without giving anyone the right for us to know the mechanism by which he was appointed, or the necessity that dictates introducing a new important position for him.
We do not know whether the council has convincing arguments — arguments we do not know as journalists and researchers — that necessitate withholding the secret behind Qatamin’s appointment, which may be linked to manufacturing weapons of mass destruction or highly sensitive information about Jordan's role in the war in Ukrainian, for example!
The information council’s resolution is not strange nor out of place, as long as the foundation of the successive governments’ relationship with the Jordanian citizens has always been ambiguity and lack of transparency.
What is new, however, is that the resolution legitimizes this is strange behavior. The irony is that it comes within the process prescribed by a law that is supposed to grant us access to information.
The second paradox is that this decision comes after the Privatization Evaluation Committee has completed its task, and submitted its important and professional report about the privatization processes that were previously implemented, in addition to the mistakes and pitfalls that beset the process.
The committee submitted its recommendations on the path that should be traded next. The keyword in the report is transparency; since the commitment to standards of transparency and good governance is the only standards that can fight rumors and bridge the growing gap between the street and the government —the lack of transparency is one of the most important pillars of political and economic crisis in a country!
There is nothing wrong in the government’s failing to commit to the administrative and legal standards in the appointment, or even in providing an answer and an explanation on the method of appointment of Qatamin.
However, hiding behind a phrase like "state secret” is laughable, ridiculous, and invites doubt into the entire official rhetoric about transparency and the right to access information — it confirms that the officials are completely disregarding public opinion.
It means that the many reports issued by the different committees, such as the privatization and national integrity committee, are not of value to the government, let alone the people who were originally skeptical about their usefulness!
@m_rumman
This article is an edited translation from the Arabic edition.
