JORDAN FY 2009 FISCAL TRANSPARENCY REPORT

UNCLAS AMMAN 000883 SENSITIVE SIPDIS STATE FOR EEB/IFD/OMA AND NEA/ELA STATE PASS USAID E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: EAID ECON PREL JO SUBJECT: JORDAN FY 2009 FISCAL TRANSPARENCY REPORT REF: State 28885 ¶1. (U) Embassy Amman's submission for the FY2009 report on fiscal transparency follows. ¶2. (SBU) Question 1: Is the central government expected to receive or is it already receiving U.S. foreign assistance funds using FY 09 funds? Answer 1: Yes, the Government of Jordan (GOJ) is expected to receive FY 09 U.S. foreign assistance funds per definition in paragraph (5) of reftel. Although the funding is not yet available from Washington, Post is entering plans for the use of funds into the FY 09 Operational Plan, which will be submitted to Washington on April ¶30. Question 2: Is the host country's budget publicly available? Answer 2: Yes, the GOJ budget is publicly available, including revenues and expenditures, on the website of the Budget Department at (www.gbd.gov.jo). Question 3: Are incomes and expenditures included in the publicly-available budget? Answer 3: Yes. Question 4: What is Post's assessment of the extent to which the publicly-available budget accurately reflects actual government incomes and expenditures? Answer 4: Post believes that the public information provided by the GOJ on its budget is accurate. Visit Amman's Classified Website at http://www.state.sgov.gov/p/nea/amman BEECROFT