The government continues to spend without budget schedules and without parliamentary oversight.
The government continues to spend without budget schedules and without parliamentary oversight.
5-14-2025
Al-Maalouma/Baghdad…
The federal government continues to spend operating and investment funds without sending budget tables to parliament. The absence of the legislative oversight authority due to the holiday allowed the government to delay sending the tables to a later date. Despite demands made by parliamentarians and statements urging the government to expedite the submission of budget tables for voting and implementation, the matter appears to be beneficial to the government in ensuring continued spending, free from oversight.
Member of Parliament Mohammed Al-Ziyadi told Al-Maalouma, “The Iraqi parliament will present the budget tables for a vote in the coming days. The tables are being prepared to prevent any mishaps and avert any potential crisis.” He pointed out the importance of the tables to the Iraqi citizen, as they cannot be postponed, which may prompt parliament to hold an extraordinary session to ensure their passage in a manner that serves the interests of the country and the state.
On the other hand, a member of the Parliamentary Finance Committee, Moeen Al-Kadhimi, confirmed to Al-Maalouma that “the federal budget was approved in 2023 for implementation over a period of three years, and the government is required to send tables amending the previous tables, while the government is not serious about sending them to Parliament, as the government is working to pass funding for governorate expenses and projects based on its existing revenues, and there is a deficit in the performance of some ministries due to the current lack of funding, so the government must address this issue.” He added that “one of the government’s solutions to the lack of financial revenues is to resort to the tax trusts available to the Tax Authority to cover the financial deficit that the government and its federal ministries are suffering from.”
In a related development, MP Baqir Al-Saadi explained to Al-Maalouma that, “Despite talk about the possibility of postponing the budget resolution until after the November 2025 elections, there are indications that the schedules may be finalized at the end of this month. Thus, after the end of the legislative session’s recess, the parliament will have the opportunity to resolve them or hold extraordinary sessions to discuss and vote on them, especially since the presence of the 2025 budget schedules is important to ensure project funding and provide financial cover for the work of local governments, allowing them to proceed with implementing service projects in all sectors.” He pointed out that “the delay in resolving these schedules and the failure of the Council of Ministers to send them to the Parliamentary Finance Committee for review before submitting them to the parliament presidency for a vote has negative repercussions on the funding of service projects in ministries and local governments, in addition to securing financial cover for the dues of many segments.”
Many MPs and political forces criticized the Cabinet’s delay in finalizing the 2025 budget schedules and submitting them to the House of Representatives’ Finance Committee for review before voting on them and enacting them into law.
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