Gov’t ‘in race with time’ to meet Gulf Fund deadlines

AMMAN — The government is in a race with time to spend the remaining allocations of the Gulf Fund on development projects according to schedule, especially since the fourth year of the grant is nearing its end, Prime Minister Abdullah Ensour said Saturday. 

He made his remarks at a meeting to review progress made to projects financed by the Gulf Fund, attended by concerned officials, the Jordan News Agency, Petra, reported.

Ensour said that the government wants to ensure that the funds are spent on time, because failure to meet deadlines will lead to the loss of hundreds of millions of dinars.

The fund was set up by the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) during their 2011 summit to support development projects in the Kingdom.

Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Kuwait and Qatar decided to extend $5 billion over a five-year period to support development schemes in Jordan. Each GCC nation will pay $1.25 billion. Qatar has not fulfilled its commitment so far.

Ensour noted that the government has shifted some allocations to other projects of priority. Participants in the meeting agreed on the need to expedite work in the construction of industrial estates in Madaba, Tafileh, Jerash and Balqa, and military-run hospitals in Mafraq, Jerash and Ajloun, in addition to the optical fibre project.