His Majesty King Abdullah II opened in Amman on Wednesday the National Conference for Heads of Municipalities in the Kingdom which aims at assessing a project on restructuring municipalities after one year since its implementation.

A number of concerned officials, academics and mayors will discuss during the two-day conference a host of issues relating to local administration and ways of activating it.

Participants in the conference will also review the implementation of the project at municipalities which suffered from financial and administrative hardships. The indebtedness of these municipalities which numbered 328 stood at JD64 million. Ninety of these municipalities went bankrupt due to a weak tax collection and the decline in the revenue of productive projects.

The Ministry of Municipalities began a project 15 months ago to restructure these municipalities and integrate them in 99 municipalities with the aim of improving services provided to citizens and overcoming financial problems.