Wearing a white beard and traditional Arab dress, Jordan's King Abdullah II went undercover again this week to check this time on the internal revenue services, a department spokesman said Monday, July 30.
The 39-year-old, wearing a red-and-white chequered scarf and flowing white robe, accompanied his half-brother Prince Ali and stood by as the prince presented documents to pay taxes in northern Amman, department spokesman Mussa Tarawnah told AFP.
Sunday's one-hour visit was the latest in a series of moves by Abdullah to drop unexpected and in disguise on administrative offices and state-run institutions as part of a crusade against corruption and inefficiency.
Last year, the king told AFP and other foreign correspondents that he got the idea for going undercover on a visit to the United States in May 1999, three months after he ascended the throne following the death of his father King Hussain.
He said at the time this gave him a chance to get a hands-on experience of how state-run services operate, in a bid to improve them.
On Sunday, as Prince Ali played along and presented a document to pay taxes, Abdullah struck up a conversation with the director of the internal revenue services and other officials on their work, Al-Arab Al-Yawm newspaper said.
The newspaper said no one recognized the young monarch throughout the visit and witnesses only realized who he was as he left the building in an official car.
Abdullah has donned several disguises since he came to power in February 1999, pretending to be a taxi driver, a television cameraman and an old man as he visited several state-run institutions.
His last publicized visit dates back to January 2000 when he toured the Zarqa government hospital just north of Amman and heard patients complain about poor health services there.
The king has once said he would continue making undercover visits periodically and that not all of them are rendered public simply because he is not always "caught". ― (AFP, Amman)
© Agence France Presse 2001
© 2001 Mena Report (www.menareport.com)
