Parliamentary Finance: The fiscal deficit in Iraq is temporary .. Parliament is ready for an emergency session
Parliamentary Finance: The fiscal deficit in Iraq is temporary .. Parliament is ready for an emergency session
05:47 – 02/10/2020
Baghdad – Mawazine News
The Parliamentary Finance Committee confirmed, today, Friday, that the current financial deficit in Iraq is temporary, indicating that Parliament is ready to hold an emergency session at any time.
The committee’s rapporteur, Ahmed Al-Saffar, said, according to the official agency, that “the current deficit is a temporary and embarrassing deficit for the government and parliament, because there is a slight deficit to finance the salaries of the month of September, which the government is more than 46 days late in paying,” pointing out that “in the event that the draft budget is awaited. Or applying for a new loan law, the issue will be delayed by more than a week or 10 days or maybe more, and this will lead to a lot of embarrassment. ”
He added that “according to the public finance literature, the Iraqi constitution and the Financial Management Law, if there is a slight deficit, the Minister of Finance has the powers to take immediate action,” indicating that “there are two types of debt; real fixed debt, which results from a significant decrease in real revenues versus public expenditures, which is a deficit.” Continuous, permanent, and it is called fixed debt, but the current deficit in Iraq is a temporary deficit, and the debt is called a debt in the public finances. Temporary treasury bills may be offered that express the existence of revenue but is delayed. There is a time mismatch between immediate public expenditures and public revenues that may be collected in the future.
He continued, “Iraq does not have a financial crisis because it has resources, but the state and the government cannot access them, so the current deficit in Iraq is a temporary deficit, and the debt is a debt and the deficit can be paid in the future,” noting that “he proposed to get out of this distress and great embarrassment.” The government has the right to move the Minister of Finance to offer bills and immediate borrowing from Iraqi banks or the central bank to pay salaries. Then the move will take place a week later when Parliament starts its sessions and the normal situation in Baghdad returns after the end of the forty-day visit.
Al-Saffar pointed out that “the draft budget was delayed sending it to the House of Representatives, and there was only one night remaining in the Parliament’s Office and it was withdrawn by the government until the Finance Committee did not see it. I do not know the reasons behind the withdrawal of the project and this embarrassment to the House of Representatives by the Ministry of Finance is never acceptable because The mistake and imbalance is the lack of monetary and financial policies in Iraq. All that exists is that they are waiting for debts and financing the operating budget. ”
Al-Saffar asserted that “the parliament is ready to hold any emergency session in order to solve the current crisis. It is possible to borrow immediately and then remedy the situation after a while because it is not correct that the employee waits for days without a salary and this is his only source of livelihood,” indicating that “there are two solutions. As soon as possible until it is approved or resorting to a new borrowing if the government is able to obtain the approval of Parliament because the issue of debt in Iraq has become in a very dangerous scope and leads the Iraqi economy to the unknown. “Ended 29 / H
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