Is it blatant theft or economic reform? The government resorts to citizens to compensate for its revenue shortfall.
Is it blatant theft or economic reform? The government resorts to citizens to compensate for its revenue shortfall.
10-8-2026
Information/Report…
Various Iraqi provinces are preparing for demonstrations and protests against the government’s recent decision to raise the exchange rate of the dollar against the dinar to 150,000 dinars per 100 dollars. This will mean a rise in all prices across the country, with the average citizen bearing the brunt of such decisions. The government justifies the move as part of a plan to compensate for revenue shortfalls and maximize state resources, but this will come at the expense of the citizen, who will suffer greatly in the coming days. Various political, economic, and even legal circles have rejected this measure and decision, which raises prices at the expense of the average citizen.
Yasser al-Husseini, a former member of the Parliamentary Committee on Economy and Investment, told Al-Maalouma, “There is a possibility of addressing the phenomenon of the rising dollar exchange rate by eliminating the gap between the official and parallel market rates. Corrupt figures were behind creating this gap, which is extracted from the livelihood of the average citizen.”
He added, “The citizen is not harmed by the exchange rate itself as much as by the gap between the official and parallel dollar rates. Stabilizing market prices for everyone requires unifying and eliminating the difference between the official and parallel dollar rates.”
He stated that “there is a need to revitalize local industries, especially since the dollar exchange rate has created a real gap and significant losses for international companies exporting consumer goods to Iraq. The private sector can capitalize on this situation and move towards reviving local production in various sectors.”
He explained that “eliminating the gap between the official and parallel dollar exchange rates requires steps that may take two or three years, through increasing paperless transactions, relying on electronic trading, and distributing and deploying ATMs extensively in order to eliminate the parallel exchange rate and prevent the circulation of any currency domestically except through the Central Bank.”
For his part, economic expert Rashid al-Saadi told Al-Maalomah that “the decision to raise the dollar exchange rate against the Iraqi dinar is an unfair, wrong, and ill-considered decision, as it targets low-income earners, the poor, the vulnerable, and tradespeople, and opens the door for merchants to exploit citizens by raising the prices of food and various goods.”
He continued, “The al-Zaydi government should focus on reducing the expenses of the three presidencies and addressing the phenomenon of ghost employees and those receiving multiple salaries, whose numbers reach into the thousands, in addition to reducing infrastructure allocations for officials and cutting security details, fuel, and travel allowances, rather than resorting to impacting ordinary citizens by increasing the dollar exchange rate and consequently raising the prices of food and other goods.”
He pointed out that “resorting to increasing the dollar exchange rate under these difficult living conditions is an unwise and ill-considered decision, and its repercussions will be disastrous for ordinary citizens.”
In a related context, legal expert Ali al-Tamimi explained to Al-Maalouma that “the Federal Court has thus far protected the bank’s independence and rejected lawsuits seeking to overturn the exchange rate (Decision 32/Federal/2021), but the new decision of 6/10/2026 can be challenged before it based on Article 93/Third if it is proven to violate Article 3 of the Central Bank Law itself (its objective is price stability) and Article 30 of the Constitution.”
He affirmed that “the constitutionally sound course of action is not to arbitrarily refuse to approve the entire budget, but rather to vote on the budget with an amendment to the exchange rate clause, to question the governor of the Central Bank in Parliament, and to appeal to the Federal Court with the support of a large number of MPs as third parties to demonstrate the public interest.”
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