Representatives’ objections embarrass the government. Will the budget be passed or re-included?
Representatives’ objections embarrass the government. Will the budget be passed or re-included?
5-27-2024
Information/report..
With the wave of large objections to the 2024 budget, which the government sent to the House of Representatives, today the Finance Committee began its meetings to discuss the budget in the presence of the Ministers of Planning and Finance.
The budget was faced with a severe campaign by representatives of the center and south because the government reduced the budget of these provinces significantly, while the government supported the budget of the Kurdistan region.
The 2024 budget, according to what Prime Minister Muhammad Shiaa Al-Sudani announced last Sunday, amounts to 211 trillion dinars, and employee salaries for the year 2024 amount to 62 trillion dinars, while the 2023 budget amounted to 199 trillion dinars and employee salaries amounted to 59 trillion dinars.
According to Al-Sudani, the revenues of the 2024 budget are estimated at “144 trillion and 336 billion dinars, while expenditures amount to 210 trillion and 936 billion dinars, while the deficit is 63 trillion and 599 billion dinars.”
Al-Sudani said, “The governorates’ allocations to local government programs with an investment allocation amounted to 10.633 trillion dinars in 2023, and we financed 3.333 trillion dinars, based on fundamental requests from the governorates,” adding, “The remainder of the allocation is 7.333 trillion dinars in a trust account, at the disposal of the governorate governments.”
Later, the Finance Committee confirmed in a statement that it held its first meeting regarding the Federal General Budget Law for the year 2024, with the aim of developing a comprehensive plan to review and analyze the budget schedules and their items after they arrive from the Prime Minister’s Office.
The head of the Finance Committee, Atwan Al-Atwani, announced that he had received the budget tables after they arrived from the Presidency of the Council of Ministers, in preparation for discussing them and drawing up the financial policy for them, stressing the speedy completion of them before the end of the legislative term of the Council.
Acting Speaker of the House of Representatives, Mohsen Al-Mandalawi, had referred the draft federal budget law for 2024 to the Finance Committee after receiving it from the Iraqi government.
These tables put the government in a tight corner due to the large number of objections to the budget by representatives from the center and south, especially after a number of them announced that they would not vote on it if it remained as is.
Representative Wafaa Al-Shammari confirmed that the central and southern governorates were subjected to great injustice in the current year’s budget that the government sent to the House of Representatives.
Al-Shammari told Al-Maalouma, “The bulk of building the Iraqi economy falls on the central and southern governorates,” explaining, “These governorates are the ones who finance the state treasury through their oil fields, but despite that, they suffer injustice.”
She added, “What was allocated to the central and southern governorates in the budget tables is very weak and does not match their need to sustain projects,” noting that “instead of doing justice to these governorates, the government reduced their budgets and increased the Kurdistan region’s budget.”
In addition, Representative Bassem Al-Gharibawi confirmed that there is dissatisfaction in the House of Representatives regarding the allocations for the central and southern governorates in the budget tables that were received from the government to the House of Representatives.
Al-Gharibawi told Al-Maalouma, “The House of Representatives, especially the representatives of the southern provinces, have an objection to the budget that the government sent to Parliament.”
He added, “Parliament expends effort and time in every budget to do justice to the central and southern governorates that have been subjected to unfairness in allocations, despite the fact that these governorates’ administrative system is decentralized, which necessitates the existence of a decentralized financial system.”
He stated that “what is happening in the governorates is the opposite, as the federal government controls the allocations, which makes the governorates unable to provide services to their citizens.”
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