Fayyad’s efforts to overcome current crisis

The Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, confirmed that the Palestinian Authority (PA) has exerted its utmost in order to achieve better living conditions for the citizens, and to solve any difficulties, despite its severe financial crisis. Fayyad delivered a speech on Wednesday during the inauguration of a new headquarter for the transportation ministry in Tulkarem. This was attended by the governor of Tulkarem, Gamal Saaed , Transportation Minister Ali Abu Zahry , The US General Counsel in Jerusalem, Michael Rattni , Office Director of US Agency for Development Mike Harvey , mayors and heads of local councils and the Director of Jerusalem Open University in Tulkarem. Fayyad said: “This celebration coincides with the bad living conditions which the Palestinian citizen is suffering from. It is getting harder because of the price rise of general products. More than 200.000 Palestinians are unemployed and the social security provided by the government is very limited despite the increase in beneficiaries which has reached 100.000 families per month.” The PM added: “I will frankly explain the difficulty of the current living conditions. Despite the limited resources, especially amid the recent financial crisis, we are working on facing the negative impact of the price rise.” Fayyad stressed that the government welcomes any new ideas to ease the crisis. He added: “We do not want to raise expectations or to charge others with the responsibility or to make impossible and unachievable promises. The citizen should know the real image of the conflict. We realise that we will not achieve a stable developed economic situation as long as we are occupied. We need to end the occupation to live with dignity in an independent state. However, until we get rid of the occupation, there are challenges and difficulties as a result for aids delay.”    He explained during his speech that the price rise has become a global crisis; even the developed countries are facing many difficulties to gather all possible resources to overcome it. He clarified: “Of course those countries have much more capabilities compared to our limited ones, so their problem is so much easier than ours. I am not justifying anything or trying to get rid of our responsibility, on the contrary, the PA realises the size of this problem. Moreover, the occupation imposes living burdens which no other people can bear, yet we have expanded the social security network more than once and the number of the beneficiaries has been doubled during the last three years. Fayyad talked about the economic crisis which the authority has been suffering from since 2010, and has worsened in the last months. He said : “ We are suffering from a long-term crisis as we do not receive enough external aids. The PA is attempting to depend on the local resources and it has achieved a good deal of success as the amount of aids has reduced to one billion dollars, approximately the half of what was amounted in the last few years.” The Palestinian PM added: “We have not received enough aids during the last years which have lead to our current crisis. We are working with our own efforts and resources to increase the income and to improve the taxes performance and to reduce the expenses.” In this context , the Palestinian PM criticised the decision of the occupation authority to demolish facilities building in Ezbet al Tabib, a school in Khan Al Ahmar and many buildings in Bethany. He called for an urgent and immediate international interference to put an end to the Israeli violations and to enable the Palestinians to live freely and decently in an independent state with full sovereignty and according to the1967 borders. Fayyad also called on the brotherly Arabs to support the PA so that it could carry out its duty in various fields, confirming that this support is essential to build a resistant economy that is able to provide job opportunities, and to enhance the citizen’s ability to stand still. He stressed the PA’s respect for the freedom of expression and protest as the government totally understands the difficult living conditions which lead the citizens to protest. The PM praised the workers in the security institution in which no anti-protesting action was recorded against the demonstrations related to the economical conditions. The institution works according to the concept of freedom of expression and the respect for human rights. He affirmed that the security services are careful while dealing with such protests and adopt freedom of expression concept to protect the democratic practices. Fayyad urged to avoid misunderstanding, while the security services are very flexible in dealing with the protests because the citizen expresses his pains and his living conditions, which is his right, the security services have also the right to strictly deal with those who violate the law and commit crimes, especially the murder of Jabaa lady as well as the murder of captain Hisham al Rakh in Jenin city. The citizen should know his rights as well as his duties and the security services will work on alleviating and organising the protests using various tools, however they will not tolerate any law violations. On the other hand, the Palestinian Prime Minster confirmed that the PA has made  progress concerning the establishment of a Palestinian state. He said: “The new building of the transportation ministry in Tulkarm is considered as a qualitative addition in the field of providing necessary and essential facilities for the citizen. This building is included within the project adopted by the transportation ministry in cooperation with the following ministries: interior, financial, communications, housing and public works. This project will be positively reflected on the Palestinian citizen and adopting the concept of decenteralisation instead of bureaucracy. He expressed his gratitude for the main donor of the project, the American Agency for Development. Fayyad continued: “This project comes in the framework of the efforts exerted to enhance and develop the institutional structure and its ability to improve the service provided for the citizens. It is a part of a model plan related to the facilities in the public sector and to improvement of the institutional work. This achievement is a continuation for the decenteralisation concept adopted by the transportation ministry which eases providing the facilities to the citizens and improving their quality. Accordingly, this improvement needs to develop the administrational structure and give the directorates enough licence to practice its authority in the scope of its responsibility. Fayyad praised the efforts exerted by the transportations ministry to reduce road accidents. He also emphasised the importance of the local council elections as these councils provide facilities and improve the quality of the services for the citizens, believing that the elections is a sacred right for every citizen. He called for the widest popular participation in the next elections to be held on October 20.