AMMAN - A parliamentary committee will look into corruption allegations over the Greater Amman Municipality’s (GAM) strategy concerning land appropriation in Amman for the past few years, a leading parliamentarian said on Wednesday.

“This is a huge case with hundreds of millions involved,” said Deputy Mamdouh Abbadi (Amman, 3rd District), member of the parliamentary committee probing a string of suspected corruption cases at GAM.

“GAM’s debt level increased significantly in the past years,” added Abbadi, who served as mayor in the 1990s.

“Illogical decisions relating to land appropriation in Amman was behind flooding GAM with all these loans from commercial banks,” Abbadi said.

Insisting that such allegations are groundless, a senior GAM official source said: “We have answers for each and every question or accusation, but we will not talk unless we receive official request from concerned authorities.”

The parliamentary committee will tackle the other files of corruption allegations at GAM soon, Abbadi indicated.

On Tuesday, the committee sent a file dubbed “Tender 268” to the Prime Ministry for further legal action.

The file is linked to awarding a bid of JD700,000 to the US leading consultancy firm, BearingPoint, without floating a tender in accordance with due procedure, said a senior official in GAM, who spoke on condition of anonymity

However, BearingPoint has worked with several government agencies on operational performance improvement projects since 2007, he said.

“The decision was consistent with the government policies since 2007,” he said.

BearingPoint provides management and technology consulting services in various parts of the world.

In Jordan, it worked with the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) under a development project named USAID Jordan Economic Development Programme “Sabeq”.

The company has no offices in Jordan because it has sold out its operations in the Middle East, and other parts in the world, due to the impact of the international financial crisis, according to its website.

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