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AMMAN — Jordan’s income tax draft law will enable the Kingdom achieve a “positive credit rating” and enhance ongoing fiscal reforms in Jordan, according to a report by credit ratings agency Moody’s.

The report, a copy of which was obtained by the Jordan Times on Sunday, indicated that the bill would help reduce public debt, as it would increase revenues by JD300 million, or about 4 per cent of 2017 revenues and around 1 per cent of the gross domestic product.

“The bill would help enhance fiscal stability and reduce the financial deficit to 1.9 per cent of the total GDP by 2019,” the report indicated.

The draft law, the agency indicated, would help contain tax evasion, which reaches around 80 per cent in some sectors.

According to the agency, Jordan’s current credit rating is B1 (stable). It commended the establishment of a financial investigations unit as stipulated by the law, and the stiffening of penalties that will help curb tax evasion by both individuals and corporations.

The credit agency highlighted that Jordan is home to 1.4 million Syrian refugees, representing some 20 per cent of the population of Jordan, and that the rise in population resulted in increased government expenditure on social services amidst a decline in foreign grants.

The bill, it said, would help reduce the ratio of public debt to GDP to 82.2 per cent by 2021, from 95.3 per cent at the end of 2017.

“Credit positive means that Jordan is on track with the fiscal adjustment and structural reform programme. This is very important for creditors, and reflects the commitment to reduce deficit and debt as a per cent of GDP,” Minister of Finance Omar Malhas told The Jordan Times on Sunday, adding that the report could also signal that Jordan’s credit rating would improve.

Referring to the bill, the minister said: “This is an important reform that will broaden the tax base in an efficient and more equitable manner. The proposed reform would also help shift the balance of fiscal adjustment away from taxing consumption [which tends to hurt the poor and most vulnerable] towards taxing income, especially from those with greater capacity to pay.” 

“It also removes distortions and loopholes, and broadens the tax base for corporations, while simultaneously protecting some specific sectors that have been most affected by adverse regional conditions and by the removal of a non-WTO-compliant export subsidy,” said Malhas.

“Critical to the success of the proposed reform will be the strict implementation of measures to enhance tax administration, as well as measures to lessen incentives and increase penalties for tax evasion,” he added.

The current draft law, which triggered nationwide protests across the Kingdom involving thousands of Jordanians, exempts families whose yearly income does not exceed JD16,000 and removes an additional exemption of JD4,000 that was given to families in case they provided bills for medical treatment or education.

The country’s professional associations will hold another strike on Wednesday, despite an announced deal with the government on Saturday that dialogue would continue.  

The bill mainly focuses on three aspects: improving tax collection, curbing tax evasion and boosting tax revenues, which are expected to increase by JD300 million annually.

The proposed law seeks to increase the number of income tax payers from 5 per cent to 10 per cent.

It re-labels tax evasion from a misdemeanour to a felony with harshened penalties of imprisonment and financial fines.

AMMAN — The government is working on a plan to increase the number of beneficiaries of the National Aid Fund and expand aid programmes implemented by the fund, a government official said.

The plan, which was drafted by the fund in cooperation with World Bank experts, entails increasing the annual financial allocations to the fund, which will help reduce poverty rate in the Kingdom by 35 per cent, the official told The Jordan Times on Sunday.

“The current limited financial allocations for the fund hamper its ability to make a difference and lead to tangible reduction in poverty rates. The planned increase in the fund’s budget will help address the situation,” the official stated.

The plan includes the increase of the fund’s budget by JD50 million in 2019 and by an additional JD50 million in 2020, the official added, noting that the fund’s budget for this year stands at JD104 million.

The scheme entails improving outreach mechanisms and covering new segments with cash aid programmes, as part of a nationwide strategy prepared by the Ministry of Social Development and the Ministry of Planning and International Cooperation to enhance social protection and eliminate poverty, the official commented.

Last week, the Council of Ministers decided to double the number of beneficiaries of the National Aid Fund programme to include 85,000 new families between 2019 and 2021 at a cost of JD100 million.

The number of families currently benefitting from the fund is 92,000, and the total number of beneficiaries will gradually increase to reach 177,000 in the next three years.

Increasing the number of beneficiaries from the fund will be based on various indicators and criteria to reach the poorest families and those in dire need, the official said, adding that the plan also aims to empower the beneficiaries to find jobs.

“The new beneficiaries will be selected at the end of this year and the results of the national household income and expenditure survey that is being conducted by the Department of Statistics will be taken into account,” the official concluded.

AMMAN — The Court of Cassation has upheld a February Criminal Court ruling sentencing  a man to four years in prison after convicting him of molesting a minor at his father’s shop in Amman in November 2016.

The court declared the defendant guilty of molesting a 15-year-old girl in his father's supermarket on November 26, and handed him the maximum punishment.

 Court papers said the defendant met the victim via a mobile phone application and they became friends.

On the day of the incident, the victim went to visit the defendant at his shop, the court maintained.

“The defendant locked the door and forced her to a backroom where he molested her under threat, while she was begging him to stop,” the court said, adding that the defendant also “filmed the incident with his mobile to blackmail the child".

The victim went home and informed her family who filed a complaint, according to court documents, which added that the defendant was summoned by police and his mobile was seized after “police found the incident recorded on his device.”

The defendant contested the Criminal Court’s ruling charging that there were inconsistencies during the trial.

However, the higher court ruled that the Criminal Court followed the proper proceedings when sentencing the defendant deserves the verdict he received.

The Court of Cassation judges were Mohammad Ibrahim, Naji Zubi, Yassin Abdullat, Bassim Mubeidin and Majid Azab.

AMMAN — Bringing children to play and have fun together regardless of their differences is the long-time vision behind Little Volunteers (LV), a local organisation founded in 2014 by Jordanian Zeina Asfour, who aimed to teach young children the values of volunteering and solidarity.

“What I love about children is that they don’t see the differences, they just play together and have fun, in spite of whatever physical, cultural or social differences there might be between them,” stressed Asfour, a mother of two young girls.

The organisation recently organised an inclusive Iftar (fast-breaking meal) event in partnership with Bahja and Accessible Jordan, which saw the participation of 160 people, half of whom were children with disabilities and their families. 

Held at Stadiums Legend in Amman, the event gathered young children with autism, Down syndrome and other intellectual disabilities, who got to enjoy an evening of games, face painting, arts and crafts and magic shows, as well as the presence of the iconic musaharati, the person who walks and beats a drum in residential areas to wake people up for sohor before morning prayers.

“How I wanted for this activity to go was not to emphasise how every child is different or that disability is a barrier between people. Instead, I wanted all of them to play and enjoy a meal together, which they did,” Asfour told The Jordan Times on Sunday.

“Everyone here volunteered or came to entertain the kids for free, from Tamoor magic to storyteller Wafa Qusous and artist Suheil Baqaeen. The venue was also provided to us for free, so we managed to save up some money from the entrance fees to help families in need,” the LV founder highlighted.

The JD10 entrance ticket, which vulnerable families of kids with disabilities were exempted from, was used to cover the costs of food and to collect some money for future donations.

“With the extra money left, we are working to help three single mothers of children with disabilities, to make their life a bit easier for at least a couple of months,” Asfour explained, citing the support of a single mother who makes dairy products at home, and the payment of some of the fees for the special needs centre where another mother sends her child with severe autism.

For Aya Aghabi, founder of Accessible Jordan, an online platform which seeks to raise awareness on the issue of accessibility in Jordan, “The event was amazing. It taught the kids that it is possible for all of us to be friends and enjoy our time together no matter our differences.”

“What I loved so much was to see all the kids happy, playing together. After all, they are all young children and they all just want to have fun, explore new activities and have a nice day,” said Asfour, who established LV under the motto “Alone we can do so little, together we can do so much”.

“Of course, my daughter had some questions afterwards, but she didn’t notice anything abnormal or off,” Asfour said, recalling: “My daughter has taught me so much in terms of inclusivity, despite her young age. I remember taking her to centres for children with autism or Down syndrome and she never noticed the differences between them because she still sees that everyone is special in their own way. She does not live in the bubble that we built for our kids on what is normal or not normal.”

Luma Jamjoun, a mother of two boys, one of whom has autism, was part of the organisers, through Bahja, an initiative she founded to spread awareness about people with special needs within their community through “lots of love and joy”.

“This event gave our children a chance to celebrate a better community for all abilities, which is the vision behind Bahja,” said Jamjoun, who regularly organises outdoor and entertaining activities for children with disabilities, where they get to have fun and socialise together in locations that are suitable to their needs.

“Events like this help people discover the unique abilities of precious individuals who have special needs, which is greater than any obstacle,” she stated.

For her part, Aghabi, who is a wheelchair user herself, concluded: “I am so proud to see such events happen, showing that we can all coexist in the best way regardless of our differences.” 

AMMAN — The unemployment rate in the first quarter of 2018 stood at 18.4 per cent, up by 0.2 per cent when compared to the first quarter of 2017, the Department of Statistics (DoS) announced on Sunday.

Unemployment among males in the January-March period of this year stood at 16 per cent, while among females it was 27.8 per cent, according to a statement from DoS.

Taking gender into consideration, data show that the rate among males rose by 2.1 per cent, while it decreased among females by 5.2 per cent during the first quarter of 2018, compared to the same quarter of 2017.

Statistics on jobless people show that unemployment rate was high among holders of university degrees (unemployed individuals who hold a bachelor's degree or higher divided by the work force for the same academic qualification), standing at 24.1 per cent.

Data showed that 54.6 per cent of unemployed people hold a high school certificate and higher, DoS said, adding that the percentage of jobless males who hold a bachelor's degree and higher stood at 26 per cent, compared to 77.1 among females who hold a bachelor's degree and higher. 

The governorate with the highest unemployment rate in the first quarter of 2018 was Maan with 21.9 per cent, while Karak registered the lowest rate with 15.9 per cent.

On the other hand, the employed people who are 15 years and older constitute 29.8 per cent, DoS pointed out, adding that 59.7 per cent of working males are in the age group of 20-39 years, while working females in the same age group amounted to 63.9 per cent.

AMMAN — Jordan's Information and Communications Technology Association int@j is set to launch the first electronic platform that includes a full database on entrepreneurship in Jordan, according to an int@j statement.

Bashar Hawamdeh, chairman of the ICT Association of Jordan, said: "The platform, which is the first of its kind in Jordan, seeks to enhance the business environment scientifically and practically based on accurate data."

He noted that the platform will support business start-ups by connecting investors — both institutions and individuals — with entrepreneurs.

Initiated in cooperation with Vardot, the platform will be launched in two phases: the first including a full database on business start-ups in Jordan as well as investors and funding parties, while the second phase will entail creating connections between entrepreneurs and investors so as to exchange ideas and interests in order to eventually stimulate entrepreneurship and economic growth in Jordan, according to the statement.

Hawamdeh said that int@j efforts are in line with His Majesty King Abdullah's vision Reach 2025, which seeks to make Jordan an ICT hub in the region, to digitise its economy, and to attract more investments and business start-ups from all over the world.

Int@j's chairman conveyed his gratitude to Vardot for supporting the national initiative by developing the e-platform which will be titled "StartupsJo".

For his part, Vardot CEO Mohammed Razem expressed his pride for taking part in the project which he said "will contribute to achieving the royal vision Reach 2025".

"We look forward to enriching the ICT sector and creating more investment opportunities through the new platform, which creates an interactive environment that fosters communication among the various involved parties," Razem commented.

AMMAN — The Queen Rania Foundation (QRF) recently partnered with the Los Angeles-based non-profit XPRIZE and various organisations to form a new impact coalition aimed at expanding the outreach and scope of educational technological innovations developed through the Global Learning XPRIZE.

A global competition launched during the UN General Assembly week in 2014, the XPRIZE challenges teams across the globe to develop open-source, scalable software to enable children with limited access to education to teach themselves basic reading, writing and arithmetic within 15 months, according to on XPRIZE representative.

The five finalists of the competition were announced in 2017 and awarded $1 million each to develop their innovative projects, while receiving the help of the United Nations’ Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), the World Food Programme and the government of Tanzania to field test their solutions, an XPRIZE statement said.

Following the first field testing currently under way in eastern Tanzania, where some 4,000 children from 150 villages in the Tanga region were provided with Pixel C tablets to test the software solutions, each member of the Global Learning Impact Coalition will start an individual pilot in a specific target country.

The Queen Rania Foundation’s pilot aims to explore the potential use of mobile learning to support basic literacy and numeracy in Syrian refugee camps and Jordanian host communities, by investigating areas where education technology can have the most impact on children’s lives, whether in school, at home or at learning centres, according to Haifa Dia Al Attia, CEO of the QRF.

“Through this partnership, we aim to localise and pilot one of the XPRIZE finalists’ solutions, and to build on the momentum of other QRF mobile app initiatives in Arabic, Karim and Jana, with the aim of improving children’s numeracy skills,” she said, voicing the Queen Rania Foundation’s happiness to “partner with XPRIZE in their quest to achieve exponential change through innovation and in their vision to transform education and bring it to everyone”.

Among the other partners in the impact coalition are the global fund Education Cannot Wait, the Teach the World Foundation, Imagine Worldwide working in Malawi and the Global Alliance for Humanitarian Innovation.

“The goal of the coalition is to collect and share globally accessible datasets linked with open source software to enable anyone, anywhere, to learn from and build upon them,” the XPRIZE statement read, noting that by the end of the field testing phase in April 2019, the team whose solution enables the greatest proficiency gains in reading, writing and arithmetic will receive the grand prize of $10 million.

“This is a global movement to spark a revolution in learning. With our influential new partners, we will reach children from Jordan to Pakistan, in rural and urban communities, and in refugee camps —helping make the Global Learning XPRIZE truly global,” said director of education and impact for the Global Learning XPRIZE Emily Church, adding that “this next step demonstrates the power of partnerships to scale innovative educational technologies with the potential to impact billions of children”.

“As a world community, we have the money and finally the technology to solve this challenge — all we need now is to work together,” Church concluded. 

AMMAN — As of Sunday, Royal Jordanian (RJ) is flying three times a week directly to Denmark's capital, Copenhagen. The new route will give RJ a "strong presence in the Scandinavian market and enhance tourism from the Nordic countries to Jordan", an RJ press release said on Sunday.

The new destination is part of RJ’s turnaround plan that includes, among others, continuous assessment of the route network in order to enhance traffic to Jordan and improve connectivity via the base, Amman.

The new route, launched after having conducted a feasibility study, is expected to attract more tourists to Jordan, facilitate travel for businessmen, and enhance trade between Jordan and the Scandinavian market, according to RJ.

Copenhagen Airport is the largest in the Nordic countries and the busiest for international travel; it serves many cities in the Scandinavian Peninsula, particularly southern Sweden.

A delegation of representatives from Royal Jordanian, Jordan Tourism Board and Jordanian travel agents were on the inaugural flight to Copenhagen, according to the statement.

AMMAN — The ICT Ministry, in cooperation with the education and health ministries and KINZ Company, on Sunday launched the e-daleel website.

ICT Minister Majd Shweikeh said that the website, www.e-daleel.gov.jo, aims at providing a unified e-gate to access contact information and websites of all government departments easily through several tools that will help users access required information, the Jordan News Agency, Petra, reported.

Education Minister Omar Razzaz said that publishing the ministry's information is of great importance for citizens through helping them know more about schools and ministry services.

Marwan Juma, KINZ's board of directors chairman, said that the first phase of the website included information of schools, hospitals and health centres that are affiliated with their respective ministries taking into consideration that some 90 per cent of citizens need these data. 

AMMAN — The Goodwill Campaign in cooperation with Qatar Charity on Saturday organised an Iftar banquet for 200 orphan children at Queen Zein Al Sharaf Institute for Development, the Jordan News Agency, Petra, reported.

The event came as part of the cooperation between Qatar Charity and the campaign, which is implemented by the Jordanian Hashemite Fund for Human Development, with the aim of fighting poverty and supporting orphaned children in the Kingdom.

The banquet included several entertainment and cultural activities for the children, who also received food parcels for their families and money vouchers to buy clothes for Eid.

The two organisations have recently announced their Ramadan programme with the distribution of 1,700 food parcels to various governorates as well as three Iftar banquets, according to Petra.