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Legal action in process in major graft cases

By JT - Feb 19,2018 - Last updated at Feb 19,2018

AMMAN — The Jordan Integrity and Anti-Corruption Commission (JIACC) council has referred cases that allegedly involve legal and financial violations for legal action to its in-house prosecutor general.

The cases are related to the referral of a mining tender at the Jordan Phosphate Mines Company (JPMC) in 2013 to a construction company with over JD300 million, a JIACC source said on Sunday.

The source said that intensive investigations by JIACC personnel of the case detected possible graft in the process, the Jordan News Agency, Petra, reported.

He added that the price referred to the construction company was higher than prices presented by other companies, which  were qualified to execute the project, noting that other companies were not negotiated on the prices they offered. 

A specialised audit company, which JPMC Board of Directors tasked to estimate the fair price of such a tender, concluded that the price agreed on with the winning bidder was higher than a reasonable market price, said the source.

He added that the alleged violations constitute the principle of fair competitiveness and represent a misuse of authority that resulted in damage to the public interest of JPMC, a public shareholding company, and waste of its funds.

Meanwhile, in a case received in late 2017, the JIACC’s prosecutor general ordered the detention of Northern Badia’s water director, an employee and a retired employee for two weeks at the Juweideh Correctional and Rehabilitation Centre, according to the source.

The director and employee have been indicted of misuse of office in accomplice with others, through “cheating” in administrating public money, under the economic crime and JIACC laws.

As for the retired employee, he faces charges of being an accomplice in the crime that includes implementing “fake” maintenance works with over JD50,000, the JIACC source told Petra.

The retired employee was tasked with carrying out maintenance through vehicles he owns, despite the fact that the water directorate has similar vehicles. 

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