2025 Budget: Continuous Delays and Suspended Promises
2025 Budget: Continuous Delays and Suspended Promises
2-12-2025
Information / Report..
Delays in approving the budget are a recurring phenomenon due to political differences, whether within the government or between the government and parliament. This delay has become more evident in recent years. With regard to the 2025 budget, the country has witnessed continuous delays in approving the financial schedules for this year, which raised questions about the reasons and negative repercussions of this delay.
Observers confirm that this delay will lead to a severe shortage in funding and a delay in sending the budget schedules, which threatens to disrupt the implementation of many vital development projects. This delay reflects a state of concern about the government’s ability to fulfill its economic and social obligations on time, which negatively affects the development of infrastructure and the achievement of economic stability.
Speaking about this file, Jamal Koujar, a member of the Parliamentary Finance Committee, revealed the impact of the delay in sending budget tables on investment projects in Iraq, noting that the government has not yet sent any tables related to the 2025 budget.
Koujar explained in a statement to / Al-Maalouma / agency that “the budget is usually sent in the fourth month of each year, and if it is delayed, as happened in 2024, the government will continue to spend the 2024 budget without approving new projects for 2025.”
He explained that “the government has not yet sent any tables or documents related to the 2025 budget to the relevant authorities, including Parliament and the relevant financial committees, and it is expected that this will be delayed until after the fourth month of this year.”
He pointed out that “more than 6,000 projects are currently suspended due to lack of funding and the delay in sending budget tables, which threatens to disrupt the implementation of many development projects.”
He added, “The delay in sending the budget will mainly affect the investment budget, which will face difficulty in financing new projects, which means that previous projects will be the only hope for continued implementation.”
Regarding the differences between previous budgets, Koger points out that “the budget for 2023 and 2024 contained a difference of about 15 trillion dinars, and the features of the upcoming budget are not yet clear, especially in light of talk about the possibility of a decrease in revenues, which may lead to a reduction in the investment budget.”
He continues that “the expected financial resources for 2025 may face a significant shortage due to the current economic conditions and the continued decline in oil prices.”
In addition, economic expert Nabil Al-Marsoumi warned of the danger of covering the high financial deficit in the 2025 budget with internal debts.
Al-Marsoumi said in an interview with /Al-Maalouma/ agency, that “the state’s public expenditures are constantly increasing, and therefore the budget deficit continues, and the financial budgets after 2003 included a planning deficit of a certain amount, and then when the budget is implemented, there is a surplus,” indicating that “we noticed in the financial budget for 2024 a deficit of more than 20 trillion dinars, which is an actual deficit and not hypothetical or speculative.”
He added that “this leads to an increase in the internal debt, which has become 83 trillion dinars after it was around 70 trillion dinars,” noting that “covering the financial deficit in the budget through internal debt is the source of danger in Iraq today and causes great burdens and weakens the state’s financial capacity, as well as casting a shadow over the general economic movement in the country.”
The delay in approving the budget schedules for 2025 poses a major challenge to the national economy, which requires the government to enhance coordination between all concerned parties and take urgent steps to expedite the submission of budget schedules.
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