A burdensome budget even before its enactment… Parliamentary criticism of the focus on expenditures, employment, and repetitive clauses
A burdensome budget even before its enactment… Parliamentary criticism of the focus on expenditures, employment, and repetitive clauses
10-23-2026
Information/Report…
The government’s talk and actions regarding the budget, and its move towards raising the dollar exchange rate to secure and increase revenues, have been met with considerable criticism from various popular, political, economic, and especially parliamentary circles. This approach is no different from its predecessors in its focus on securing operational expenses and hiring, which increases the financial burden on the budget and raises costs beyond expectations. There are fears that the government will resort to raising the dollar’s value against the dinar with each parliamentary session to increase revenues.
Former member of the parliamentary finance committee, Muhammad al-Shabaki, told Al-Maalouma, “Moving towards raising the dollar exchange rate to secure and cover expenses and increase revenues is a bad approach, as it will add 250,000 job positions to the state’s payroll annually, or these positions may be filled by job seekers.”
He added, “The government should follow a clear plan until 2030 that includes accepting 500,000 job positions, coinciding with a process for retirees to provide positions that can accommodate the existing demand.”
He explained that “the government’s talk of one million job positions, including contract workers, in next year’s budget, and the Ministry of Finance’s approval of this, is a poor step, given the financial crisis and funding shortfall that has forced the government to devalue the local currency against the dollar.”
For her part, MP Saba al-Saadi told Al-Maalomah that “the mechanisms for distributing financial allocations are not limited to a single criterion, but rather involve a range of factors aimed at addressing the needs of the governorates and achieving a degree of fairness in the distribution of financial resources, commensurate with population size and the required level of services and infrastructure.”
She added that “some governorates receive additional allocations within the petrodollar system, given the nature of oil activity and its associated resources, while other governorates rely on allocations from the Regional Development Program to implement service and construction projects and develop infrastructure.”
She pointed out that “the investment budget represents an important aspect of financing development projects, alongside petrodollar allocations and the Regional Development Program, as well as revenues and allocations related to border crossings and special funds, according to the legal frameworks and regulations adopted for each.”
She pointed out that “the difference in resources and funding sources between the governorates leads to varying financial allocations, which necessitates considering the total funds allocated to each governorate, rather than a single share in isolation from the rest of the allocations and revenues.”
In a related context, Member of Parliament, Mukhtar al-Youssef, explained to Al-Maalomah that “the realistic indicators regarding Iraq’s oil revenues are not promising, due to the decline in oil exports resulting from the closure of the Strait of Hormuz,” noting that “what is being exported through Turkey and the Syrian port of Banias cannot cover the actual expenditures of the budget.”
He added that “the financial deficit may transform the upcoming budget into a purely operational budget, and it may be limited to securing salaries, which themselves may face some difficulties in the coming period due to the ongoing crisis.”
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