Economy

Mahmoud Al-Kifiri crosses the point that separates the villages of Al-Torra and Al-Shajara in Ramtha District north of Amman adjusting his steering wheel right then left to avoid the potholes filling his road. His efforts are not always successful, as some are unavoidable.

Rough Road

Al-Kifiri runs a home-cooking catering business in Al-Shajara village in Ramtha, and he relies on delivering meals prepared in his restaurant to customers in the area and beyond, therefore using the roads frequently. Al-Kifiri checks his tires for damages incurred during his rounds saying in a frustrated tone:

The roads are in a deplorable state. Four years may have passed since they last repaired bumps and potholes here. Roads must be serviced and repaired so that cars can run on them.”

The village of Al-Shajara is not the only in the area suffering poor road conditions, other towns in the Hawran plain are equally bad, and a tour by car is enough to show how shabby a state the roads are in.

Users of the main road in the middle of Al-Shajara village avoid potholes

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This data-driven report reveals the poor conditions of roads in the municipality of Hawran Plain in the Ramtha, as budget allocations for maintenance have declined in the past years. One third of the district population are concentrated in Al-Shajara, Al-Torra, Al-Thineiba and Amrawa that are overseen by the municipality.

Analysis of the budget of Hawran Plain municipality for 2018-2021 shows a 70% decrease in spending on street maintenance. At the same time, expenditures on opening new roads and paving old ones has decreased to as little as tenth of what it was, and so did the asphalt mixtures preparation in the municipality.

Potholes, bumps, and unpaved roads are not the only indicators of the poor quality of repair, Al-Kifiri’s car bought five years ago is a victim of the bad state of the roads as it has become a regular at auto repair shops.

Al-Kifiri says,

I change all the tires once every year or a year and a half. Those were changed a month ago and I have visited the auto repair shop three times since.”

Like Al-Kifiri, other residents in the town have been visiting the industrial part of the city and its repair shops frequently.

A questionnaire was given out to more than sixty people while working on this report revealed that dozens of the Hawran Plain municipality residents visit workshops to repair and maintain their vehicle tires at least three times a month.

Twenty-six-year-old Ahmad Al-Nabhan sits back in his auto repair shop near the main entrance of the town, observing his employees doing their tasks in the workshop he opened recently. In addition to repairing tires, Al-Nabhan receives about ten cars in his workshop suffering from broken wheel rims, explaining that potholes cause such problems which lead to tire exploding.

According to Al-Nabhan, damage caused by potholes and poor roads is not limited to tires and rims but extends also to damaging rubbers, suspensions and linkages of vehicles small and big.

Municipality roads in Al-Shajara and Al-Torra

Total roads of the municipality in meters


Source: Municipality of Hawran Plain

Temporary solutions

Poor road conditions prompted citizens like Mohammad Al-Smeiaat to patch up the street where his coffee shop is located near the post office roundabout, after losing hope that the municipality will intervene. A month ago he visited the municipality to report the increased number of potholes but was told that there were no financial allocations in the budget for road maintenance.

Al-Smeiaat attributes the abundance of potholes to the poor infrastructure of the roads, to the lack of an integrated drainage system which leads to the speedy erosion of the road and its thin asphalt layer, adding that “This is the spot where all the village water gathers, people seriously need boats to cross the road.”

Al-Smeiaat took the initiative to repair the road near his shop to reduce the damage to vehicles



Residents resorted to simple methods to cover potholes in order to minimize damage to vehicles



In addition to managing the coffee shop, Al-Smeiaat works as a maintenance technician. He took the initiative and patched the street himself, providing the manpower and some material by himself, while the municipality has provided him with the sand.

Al-Smeiaat realizes that he has only provided a temporary solution to help the people of the area last winter, but no one knows how long this will last.

Financial challenges and backlogs

The executive director of the Hawran Plain municipality Mumtaz Al-Anzi explained that the municipality has encountered problems with the specifications as set by the Ministry of Local Authority for building new roads and paving old ones. She points out that the ministry’s criteria are not suitable for the soil nature in the Hawran Plain characterized by its red sand that could be two meters deep.

The executive director asserts that it is necessary to make modifications for the soil before laying the foundation for asphalt mixtures so as to avoid future holes in the roads, noting that around three years ago, the municipality managed to modify the specifications when the Ministry agreed to address the issue properly.

Al-Anzi said that the delay in approving the budget represents another constraint that disrupts the implementation of new infrastructure projects, adding that “The 2021 budget was approved in November. But at the beginning of the year, we received an update indicating budget shortages that hinder us from meeting our operating expenses, which means that the would be calls for tenders, and projects would not start quickly.”

Driving does not seem easy in the village of Al-Shajara as potholes surround vehicles

The mayor of Hawran Plain Ali Al-Shboul confirms that the Ministry of Local Authorities has raised its allocations for paving roads of the municipality by about fifty thousand Jordanian Dinars ($70000) for the current year at the request of the municipal council, but the delay in approving the budget is causing a delay in implementing the projects, “the budget has not been approved yet, even though we are in May.” Says Al-Shboul.

The above interviews were conducted in May 2022. In late June, the municipality of Hawran Plain began patching up potholes on main roads, including the main street of Al-Shajara village, the Khalid Diab Roundabout area, and the Dheif Allah Al-Saleh Roundabout area, but other roads are still awaiting desperate repairs at some unknown date.

Meanwhile, Mahmoud Al-Kifiri and others are still navigating the potholes on their journeys between the villages of the Hawran Plain municipality. He has hardly driven his car enough in the last month since he had a new set of tyres fitted before returning to the garage to get them repaired again.

This story was produced under 100 Watts project- supported by the Embassy of Netherlands