AKEED, Husam Assal

Several media outlets have developed their stories on what took place in the meeting between the parliament"s Integrity, Transparency, and Fact-Finding Committee and Engineer Huda Shishani, former director general of the Government Tenders Department, last Tuesday by relying on one, anonymous source. These outlets depicted Shishani as having gone back on her previous positions concerning a case that she reported to the Integrity and Anti-Corruption Commission, which gave her legal protection after her testimony. Shishani denied this to AKEED.

The Jordan News Agency (Petra) ran a story on 12 September about the meeting of the committee, in which it summed up what happened as follows: "Committee sources said that Shishani denied social media reports that she spoke about corruption in the tenders of the Ministry of Public Works. She said that she spoke about canceling one of the tenders," without referring to any other details about what took place during the meeting.

Most media outlets reported the Petra story. One website said that the parliament"s Integrity and Transparency Committee prevented the media from attending the meeting with Engineer Shishani. Also, Shu"aib Shdeifat, rapporteur of the committee, confirmed to AKEED that the session was closed and without media presence.

Another website ran a story headlined "Big Surprise: Shishani Did Not Submit Any Documents and Disavowed All Statements Attributed to Her About Corruption in Tenders of Ministry of Public Works." The story said that Engineer Shishani "disavowed all statements attributed to her about suspicions of large corruption in awarding ministry tenders." It described this as "a position that will surprise all public quarters."

The report added that according to an informed source, "Shishani denied all statements attributed to her in the local media." The source also told the website that "the committee asked Shishani to submit the documents that she claimed were in her possession and that proved corruption in the amount of 40 million dinars in Al-Shaidiah-railway tender. However, she did not submit any document."

The story accused Shishani of "evading answering the questions of the committee and hiding behind the King Abdullah II Award for Excellence in Government Performance and Transparency for 2013, which she had won." It said that she had dwelled on the fact that her contract was terminated. The story did not mention details of what took place during the committee meeting.

Another website covered the meeting differently by reporting other details and stating that Shishani had explained to the committee the interference of the minister of public works in the Tenders Committee and the awarding of contracts.

Deputy Tamer Bino, who attended the committee meeting, told AKEED that "several issues were discussed during the committee meeting, including violations and interference in the work of the Tenders Committee. She promised the committee that she will provide documents and evidence to the chairman."

Bino said that "the chairman of the committee asked Engineer Shishani to provide the documents that support what she raised. She promised him to provide them in the next meeting." Bino said that the way the media handled the committee meeting was "based on partial information without mentioning the identity of the sources."

Aziz Obaidi and Yosef Jarrah, members of the parliament"s Integrity, Transparency, and Fact-Finding Committee, told AKEED that Engineer Shishani "did not mention the word corruption in the first place."

Deputy Dima Tahboub, who attended the session, confirmed to AKEED that Engineer Shishani "explained to the committee her position concerning the accusations reported on social media platforms, saying that she did not speak about the existence of corruption. She explained to the committee the circumstances of the case of a tender that had a violation in the amount of 40 million dinars. She promised the committee to submit letters and correspondence supporting her claims."

Engineer Huda Shishani reacted to the coverage of some media of the session by telling AKEED: "Is it reasonable to reduce a meeting that lasted around two hours to one paragraph?" She added that she did not accuse anyone of corruption and that she gave information that led to the cancellation of a tender. She said that many tenders and cases, such as the tender of the desert road, were made to be part of her case.

Several media outlets contacted Engineer Shishani, who denied what was attributed to her by the media concerning going back on previous positions, saying that she had a complete file that proves the violations and that she informed the committee about many measures and details and answered at length all the questions of the committee during the meeting. She also provided them with dates of letters supporting what she mentioned.

Shishani told one website that she did not deny her previous statements on the existence of corruption at the General Tenders Department, as published by some news sites. This is because she did not make a statement previously about the existence of corruption; she spoke about violations and about interference and pressure that she faced during her work.

Article 67/A of the Bylaw of the Lower House of Parliament  states that "the meetings of the committee shall be attended only by the members of the House, the secretary of each committee, and the experts who are summoned."

Waleed Husni, a journalist specialized in parliamentary affairs, told AKEED that "the Bylaw of the Lower House of Parliament gave the permanent committees the right to hold secret meetings away from the media, which means depriving citizens of the right to access to information. Such regulations and policies run counter to the principle of transparency and disclosure of information."

Husni says that "holding secret sessions of the permanent committees is meant to designate one channel to the media, which the committee itself controls, and to communicate the information that it deems fit, without giving any party the right to express its position and opinion. This is what happened with Engineer Shishani and the story of Petra, which published a partial and distorted piece of information." Husni added that "the news published by some media about the session deprived Shishani of expressing her position. This showed her in front of the public as going against her previous statements."

The AKEED Monitor tracked previous statements by Engineer Shishani to the media. She did not accuse the Ministry of Public Works of corruption. AKEED also contacted Engineer Shishani in a previous report, and she did not accuse the Ministry of Public Works of corruption.

The AKEED Monitor thinks that the media coverage of the committee meeting was marked by partial handling by some websites and reliance on anonymous sources. There was focus on the piece of information that she denied what social media platforms reported without heeding other details that were discussed during the committee meeting. This undermines the standard of comprehensiveness and completeness in the press material without omission or selectivity.

The coverage of some websites was marked by bias, lack of neutrality, leveling accusations, and undermining the standard of fairness and integrity, which stresses the need for reporting based on the highest degrees of honesty and by using the expressions that were said without any judgment or evaluation and without interpreting what the source said.