Merger of security agencies, upon Royal directive, reaps rich dividends — PSD

AMMAN — Following His Majesty King Abdullah’s directive to the government in December 2019 to embark immediately on merging the Civil Defence and the Gendarmerie departments into the Public Security Directorate (PSD), the Kingdom welcomed 2020 with a stronger and more capable security apparatus, according to the PSD.

After the merger, the directorate over the past year proceeded with more reforms reorganising several units, resulting in the merger of more than 99 units with similar tasks and, as a result, saving some JD180 million, PSD Director Maj. Gen. Hussein Hawatmeh said in a PSD statement.

These reforms also contributed to cutting down personnel by some 10,000 officers and cancelling 186 leadership posts, the police chief said in the statement made available to The Jordan Times.

The PSD also started implementing a new strategy consisting of seven main pillars: Operational coordination, developing and rehabilitating the human element, administrative organisation, logistic support, media development and periodic performance assessment.

The department also dealt with hundreds of thousands of security and humanitarian duties, where the Operation and Control Department received around 15 million calls resulting in five million complaints that were referred to field units for direct response.

Also, the criminal investigation, anti-narcotics and preventive security departments have made “unprecedented achievements” in discovering and preventing crime, as well as uncovering old cases, the statement said, noting that the Criminal Investigation Department achieved a high percentage of uncovering crimes and arresting suspects. 

The Anti-Narcotics Department (AND), since the beginning of 2020, have dealt with more than 19,000 drug cases, including 4,000 drug trafficking cases, the PSD said, adding that AND also paid attention to developing its therapy centre to rehabilitate victims of substance abuse and re-integrate them into society.

As for the Preventive Security Department, its personnel have devoted “high intelligence” abilities to limit crime rate and enhance community peace, where they contributed to uncovering more than 12,000 criminal cases related to drugs, counterfeit, fraud, theft, and cybercrimes among other cases.

On traffic management, the PSD worked on developing coordination among specialised traffic directorates, which resulted in reducing traffic accidents by 26 per cent, the statement said, adding that PSD also established 22 comprehensive security stations on highways, which included personnel from the civil defence and the gendarmerie departments.

Meanwhile, the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Department (DVLD) was among the first national institutions to resume work after the comprehensive lockdown imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic and it has developed its e-services extensively. Additionally it has received the “most prestigious” pan-Arab award of the Arab Government Excellence Award.

The PSD also implemented a plan to rationalise the buildings in use, where it cancelled some construction projects of new buildings and was able to achieve a surplus of 29 buildings. The PSD offered the extra buildings to the government and local communities, such as the security building in Maan that was transferred into a school, among other buildings whose capital value has reached JD52 million.

Moreover, the PSD has stepped up its media efforts giving special consideration to digital media and publishing thousands of messages on its official pages and accounts with a total of more than five million followers, creating a space for interaction with citizens to receive security information and offer suggestions and opinions.