Jordan’s PM reshuffles cabinet in the shake-up to spur IMF-guided reforms

Jordan’s Prime Minister, Bisher Al Khasawneh, announced a cabinet reshuffle on Thursday to improve his administration’s performance under IMF-guided economic reforms, Reuters reports.

The British-educated former veteran diplomat and palace aide were appointed two years ago to restore public trust over the handling of COVID-19 and defuse anger at successive governments’ failure to halt corruption and deliver prosperity.

The Finance, Foreign, and Interior ministers were kept in place in the reshuffle, which changed nearly a third of cabinet ministers, overall. Of 11 new ministers, three are women.

Khasawneh has sought to accelerate reforms pushed by King Abdullah to help the oil-importing country reverse a decade of sluggish growth hovering at around 2 percent, which was worsened by the pandemic and conflict in neighboring Iraq and Syria.

The government, last summer, unveiled a plan to attract over $40 billion of investments over the next 10 years. It said it was committed to implementing free-market reforms that businessmen say were thwarted under previous conservative administrations.

The traditional conservative establishment had long been blamed for obstructing a modernization drive pushed by the Western-leaning Monarch, fearing liberal reforms will erode their grip on power.