Kurdish deputy: Senior officials in Baghdad are behind the dollar smuggling operation out of Iraq
Kurdish deputy: Senior officials in Baghdad are behind the dollar smuggling operation out of Iraq
2023-07-23 08:13
Shafaq News/ The Kurdish MP, Soran Omar revealed Saturday, that the federal budget law has not yet entered into force, and while he indicated that the regional government will pay the salaries of June from its own imports, he confirmed that “senior officials” are behind the operations of smuggling foreign currency out of the country.
Soran Omar said during a press conference attended by Shafaq News Agency, “Until now, the federal budget for the current year has not entered into force, due to the failure to issue instructions for its disbursement,” stressing that “the citizens of the region are waiting for the implementation of the budget as soon as possible.”
Omar added, “The region was exporting oil until March 25, and it has received two trillion dinars from Baghdad, and it must settle the accounts for six months,” noting that “Baghdad now owes the region 70 dollars for every barrel of oil that the region sold during the past six months, and that the region is obligated to pay the salaries of last June because the federal budget will reach the region as of this July.”
Regarding the region’s delegation’s dialogues with Baghdad, Omar confirmed that “the delegation held meetings with the concerned authorities in Baghdad for the purpose of settling financial issues for the past six months, in addition to settling some financial accounts since 2004.”
A delegation from the Kurdistan Regional Government went, on July 16, to the federal capital, Baghdad, to discuss the financial dues of the Kurdistan Region from the federal budget.
On the renewed rise in the price of the dollar, Representative Soran Omar indicated that “the rise in the price of the dollar again is linked to the banks that participate in the currency auction,” stressing that “a large portion of foreign currencies does not go to local merchants, and many senior officials are behind some banks, some of which have branches in Kurdistan, which smuggle the dollar out of the country.”
And Soran Omar indicated that “if the Central Bank of Iraq cannot stop smuggling operations, the Iraqi currency will be in danger as is the case with other currencies, so this requires practical and bold steps and may cause the collapse of the Iraqi economy,” pointing out that “although Iraq has taken measures to prevent smuggling of hard currency, but there are senior officials behind the process of smuggling foreign currency outside Iraq.”
On July 19, 2023, the US Treasury Department imposed sanctions on 14 Iraqi banks in a crackdown on Iran’s dealings in dollars.
The Wall Street Journal quoted US officials as saying that “the move came after the disclosure of information indicating that the targeted banks are involved in money laundering and fraudulent transactions,” indicating that “some of these operations may relate to individuals subject to sanctions, which increases fears that Iran will benefit from it.”
And the US Treasury Department prevented four other Iraqi banks from accessing the dollar last November, and also imposed, in cooperation with the Central Bank of Iraq, stricter controls on financial transfers in the country in general.
In the past weeks, the Central Bank of Iraq had excluded 4 private Iraqi banks from the currency sale auction (namely: Al-Ansari, Al-Sharq Al-Awsat, Al-Qabid, and Asia) following directives and warnings from the US Treasury about these banks accused of smuggling currency.
shafaq.com
