Postponing the budget amendment until after the legislative holiday
Postponing the budget amendment until after the legislative holiday
12/17/2024
Members of the House of Representatives reported that the amendment to the budget law sent by the government to the House of Representatives was postponed and postponed until after the legislative holiday. Several representatives indicated that the arrival of the amendment before the legislative session holiday and its connection to the controversial laws before the House of Representatives led to its postponement until after the holiday.
Dr. Khalil Doski, a member of the Parliamentary Finance Committee, expected that the second reading of the budget amendment would take place at the start of the next legislative session and then the vote. Doski added, in an interview with “Al-Sabah”, that “one of the reasons for the delay, according to the committee’s opinion, is that it is necessary to host the Ministry of Finance to discuss the issue, and since they are outside Iraq in the last week before the holiday, the second reading was postponed until after the hosting.”
For his part, member of the House of Representatives, Taqi Al-Waeli, stated that all laws were postponed until after the legislative holiday.
Al-Waeli said in an interview with “Al-Sabah”: “The budget amendment came within the paragraphs of the session’s agenda, which included the controversial laws (general amnesty, real estate, amending personal status), in addition to the fact that the tables were not sent to the budget amendment, and it contains violations of Article 12 of the law,” according to him.
Member of the Parliamentary Oil, Gas and Natural Resources Committee, Kazem Al-Tawki, noted that the amendment of the budget law came from the government after an agreement with the Kurdistan Region and political forces, in order to find solutions to the cost of producing a barrel of oil for extractive companies operating in the region.
Al-Tawki explained, in an interview with “Al-Sabah”, that the cost included in the budget amounted to 6 dollars per barrel, while the region demands that it be 22 dollars per barrel or more, which necessitated amending it to be 16 dollars after voting on the budget.
He explained that “the two parties agreed to assign a specialized company to study the production costs, and then calculate any financial increase or decrease retroactively,” explaining that “before the legislative session recess, this amendment was linked to the three controversial laws, which led to its postponement until after the recess.”
Dr. Safaa Al-Shammari, a specialist in the philosophy of public law and international investment contracts, believed that “approving the budget amendment depends on political, economic and legislative factors,” noting that in Iraq, this process may be more complicated due to the political dynamics between the government and parliament and the pressures of the economic situation.
Al-Shammari expected, in an interview with Al-Sabah, that “the parliament will approve the budget amendment within a short period if the government is able to garner political support for it. However, there is a need to address the structural causes of the budget delay, such as enhancing spending efficiency and achieving a balance between revenues and expenditures, to ensure that the amendments achieve their goals rather than being just temporary solutions.” He attributed the reasons for the delay in amending the budget to “the economic challenges represented by the decline in oil prices, which is the main resource for Iraq, which led to pressures in implementing the original budget, and the high spending commitments compared to actual revenues that affected the government’s plans, and the complex amendments after the government proposed fundamental amendments that include redistributing some items, which requires a re-evaluation by parliament, in addition to the financial crisis and the management of the dollar through the Central Bank’s policy of controlling the exchange rate, which affected the stability of the local economy, which may have led to amending some financial aspects, and tensions due to disagreements between political blocs regarding the allocations of governorates and regions, and the distribution of revenues between the center and the region, which is always a point of contention.”
alsabaah.iq
