The annual report of the "Integrity and Anti-Corruption Commission" for 2024 showed that the amount of money recovered, contributed to recovery, or prevented from being wasted from public money by the commission was about 61 million dinars, in addition to detecting suspected tax evasion estimated at about 110 million dinars, whilst the commission reviewed more than two thousand investigative files, as published by the daily newspaper Al-Ghad.
The commission also referred 197 files to the public prosecutor and launched an initiative to educate university students about their role in promoting the values of integrity and combating corruption.
In a related context, Dr. Mohannad Hijazi, the chairman of the Integrity and Anti-Corruption Commission, said that he had the honor of presenting His Majesty King Abdullah II with a copy of the annual report for the year 2024, and His Majesty reaffirmed his support for the commission's efforts across all its operational facets.
He added that in the past year, 2024, the commission achieved numerous milestones across various fronts in its pursuit to establish national integrity standards including the rule of law, transparency, accountability, justice and equality, equal opportunities, and governance. To this end, it launched a national integrity index to measure the commitment of all public administration institutions to national integrity standards, which in its first and second editions helped to create an honest working environment and fostered positive competition among institutions to lead in compliance with integrity standards.
He continued: The commission's work over the past years, especially in 2024, was based on three harmonious pillars, the first being the promotion of integrity values to prevent corruption, the second being the diligent and professional enforcement of the law to prevent corruption, and the third being the pillar of building institutional capacities.
Decline in Corruption Crimes
He stressed that corruption crimes in recent years have significantly declined in most sectors of public administration due to the commission's precautionary and proactive measures to prevent corruption and because of the workshops and educational lectures it conducted consecutively, which reflected on the number of investigative files referred to the judiciary, where it dropped by 45% from 2023, and the commission contributed to the recovery of 141 million dinars, and the reason for the decline from 2023 was the issuance of a general amnesty that covered some corruption crimes. However, the commission addressed the judicial authorities concerned to pursue those covered by the amnesty to recover the funds they had acquired from corruption cases because the amnesty does not cover them.
He explained that the commission dealt with 1167 investigative files during the past year, in addition to 840 files carried over from previous years, where 1280 files were separated while 194 files were referred to the public prosecutor and 750 files were archived with the rest still under process.
The commission also worked through its various directorates to combat the idea with ideas, aiming to erase the impressionistic idea of corruption from people's memories that was built and based on rumors invented by some social media, hence the commission alongside hundreds of lectures and training and awareness workshops implemented media campaigns targeting different segments of society, especially young people, designing videos and educational meetings, and broadcasting and publishing news reports through various media.
Dr. Hijazi said, "Because youth are the pillars of the future, the commission launched the 'Integrity Ambassadors Initiative' targeting about 5,000 university students in its first phase, and also launched an innovative incubator on its website in the area of enhancing integrity and preventing corruption as well as launching the Integrity Hackathon competition for creative youth.
He indicated that the commission did not neglect to enhance its relations at the Arab, regional, and international levels, signing memoranda of understanding with Jordanian entities from various sectors, Arab peer bodies, and participating in all Arab and international and regional conferences and meetings that serve to spread the values of integrity and combat corruption, pointing out that the commission has progressed on the Corruption Perceptions Index, where the kingdom's ranking on this index became 59 out of 180 countries, and the percentage of citizens' confidence in the commission according to the last poll conducted by the Center for Strategic Studies at the Jordanian University rose to 81% while it was a few months ago 73%.
