Establishing a “Kurdistan Oil Company”…a movement maturing under the dome of the Iraqi parliament
Establishing a “Kurdistan Oil Company”…a movement maturing under the dome of the Iraqi parliament
2025-01-13 05:08
Shafaq News/ While the issue of the Kurdistan Region’s financial dues to the federal government in Baghdad has sparked widespread political controversy over the past few days, a parliamentary movement is taking place in the Iraqi Council of Representatives by a number of committees to make some amendments to the budget schedules for the year 2025, especially the item related to facilitating the resumption of the region’s oil exports, and among these options is the establishment of the “Kurdistan Region Oil Company”.
Earlier on Monday, Kurdistan Region President Nechirvan Barzani, during his meeting with Iraqi Parliament Speaker Mahmoud al-Mashhadani, called for amending the budget law in a way that guarantees the rights and entitlements of the Kurdistan Region.
Nechirvan Barzani has been visiting the federal capital, Baghdad, since yesterday, in order to put an end to some of the differences between the regional and central governments, regarding financial issues related to dues and salaries, and other oil issues related to resolving the issue of resuming the export of Kurdistan Region’s oil, which is suspended due to the cost of extraction for companies operating in the region.
In this regard, a member of the Parliamentary Finance Committee, Moeen Al-Kadhimi, told Shafaq News Agency, “The committee hosted today a delegation from the Ministry of Finance from the budget, accounting and public debt departments regarding the implementation of the general budget for the year 2024 and the complaints submitted by ministries and governorates about the lack of funding in the approved budget.”
Al-Kadhimi explained that “the budget allocated for the year 2024 was 211 trillion dinars, while the actual expenditure in the same year was 156 trillion dinars, considering that the revenues did not exceed 137 trillion dinars and the remaining amount was provided from loans.”
He stressed the need for the general budget for the year 2025 to be more realistic and not exceed 150 trillion dinars, and after voting on amending the budget law in the House of Representatives, the government will calculate what is required for extracting and transporting oil in the Kurdistan Region, where the cost varies from $6 to $16 in the upcoming budget tables.
For his part, the member of the parliamentary oil committee, Basem Al-Gharibawi, stated that the parliamentary oil and gas committee held a meeting to discuss amending the general budget law related to the Kurdistan Region’s oil, and that the committee agreed that the amendment should be in accordance with the Iraqi law and constitution .
Al-Gharibawi pointed out that there are a number of proposals submitted by the committee members regarding amending Article 12 of the Budget Law, and the proposals will be written into recommendations and will be presented in the second reading of the law.
He stressed that “some of the proposals include establishing a company under the name of the General Company for Oil of the Region, similar to other companies, and this company would be directly linked to the Ministry of Oil, and the management of the process of extracting and exporting oil in the Kurdistan Region would be under the supervision of the aforementioned company. This matter will contribute to resolving the crisis between Baghdad and Erbil.”
shafaq.com
