Something else to start denying

Despite all of the fuss made about the sale of the new army headquarters and the King Hussein Medical Center, an even more expensive and questionable project is sliding by. This is the proposed government complex in Wadi Abdoun, or what is known as the Abdoun corridor. I mentioned this before, as well as the fact that most commentators, including Fahed Fanek (who is hardly anti-capitalism), think it is a bad idea.

Mullah Nader’s denials not withstanding, the mayor of Amman is still saying that the project is still on track, despite the fact that the initial investor, Najib Miqati, has decided that the investment is not worth it. The mayor, Omar Ma’ani, says that the project will be offered to investors in three to four months. He says it is too simplify government procedures and to make things easier for the citizen blah blah blah.

What is most interesting is that he says that they want to move all the courts and the ministry of justice to a new “justice village”. One only has to look at this Google Earth image to see why this is so interesting.

Note the relationship between our central court house (which has only been in service a few years) and the Abdali project (I wonder what the whited out area is. Can anybody fill me in?). Anyway, I think this interest in relocating the courts may not really be driven by an uncontrollable urge to make things easy on people. Maybe I’m just cynical.

The municipality contorted the law to no ends to be able to confiscate a much smaller parcel of land from Talal Abu Ghazaleh for the Abdali project. Ironically, the courts let them get away with it.

Questions I think should be answered:

1- How much will this “justice village” cost?

2- How much will we get for the current central court house, and how much was spent to build it in the first place?

3- Who will get the money and how will it be spent?

4- When will they stop treating us like idiots?