News site: Oil revenues are rising, but will the Iraqis benefit from them?

[size=52]News site: Oil revenues are rising, but will the Iraqis benefit from them?[/size]

[size=45]Translation / Hamed Ahmed[/size]
[size=45]Oil sales revenues in Iraq are approaching high historical rates, reaching 8.27 billion dollars last January, and financial oil revenues are heading, if oil prices continue to rise, on their way to breaking the record set in April of 2012 when it reached Revenues from oil sales amounted to 8.8 billion dollars.[/size]
[size=45]Analyst, Sajjad Jiyad, of the Singery Foundation for Studies, points out that with a strong oil market and stable oil production rates in Iraq, "oil revenues may reach more than 9 billion dollars a month."[/size]
[size=45]He says that this will provide Iraq with more money in just one month, which exceeds Sudan's proposed budget for the whole of 2022, a country whose souls exceed the souls of Iraq by two million people. It also exceeds Syria's budget for the whole of 2022 by nearly 4 billion dollars.[/size]
[size=45]However, Ahmed Tabaqali, a fellow at the Atlantic Council, is not optimistic that these huge returns will be spent wisely.[/size]
[size=45]"Previous governments used to spend the proceeds on salaries and retirement benefits," Tabaqali said in an interview with The National. But it is very difficult to reduce the amounts of these expenses.”[/size]
[size=45]Experts point out that the increasing rates of financial returns are being wasted by political parties that fill ministries' salary lists with the names of their followers and supporters.[/size]
[size=45]In 2018, Iraq spent on the salaries of public sector employees and retirees five times what it spent on urgently needed sectors of the water, electricity and health care sectors. That year, a water crisis caused by dilapidated infrastructure in Basra poisoned nearly 100,000 people and caused a political uproar in Parliament.[/size]
[size=45]However, this crisis did not lead the government to allocate funds that it left on one side for the development of public infrastructure. A proposal for the year 2018 to freeze appointments that would have provided funds to develop new infrastructure has been suspended amid widespread protests demanding job opportunities and jobs.[/size]
[size=45]Until last year, government salaries remained at extremely high levels and constituted 77% of the value of the budget.[/size]
[size=45]Meanwhile, one of the important water projects in Basra, the Shuaiba project, is funded by the United Nations, even though Iraq's budget for 2021 amounted to $89 billion. Compared to Algeria, which has a population of 43 million, its budget for the year 2021 was estimated at $58 billion.[/size]
[size=45]Despite this continued orientation of the country, Member of Parliament Hussein Arab is optimistic that the new government may be something different.[/size]
[size=45]Arab says, "We need to know for the first time the vision of the new government regarding the country's needs and how it will manage the revenue budget that we have now."[/size]
[size=45]There is a Ministry of Planning in the country that is supposed to coordinate with the Ministry of Finance to assess the spending needs required for infrastructure. But pressure from parliament often hampers budget-drafting efforts, with some parliamentarians saying salary cuts are a red line.[/size]
[size=45]"Previous governments largely failed to allocate funds for agriculture, industry and public services, and this is what we will call for consideration in the new government," said Arab member of Parliament.[/size]
[size=45]According to the Ministry of Planning, nearly a decade after Iraq's budget reached its peak in 2012, the country now needs more than 15,000 schools.[/size]
[size=45]Arab says that Parliament plans to discuss the budget carefully this time, taking into account the huge challenges facing the country now.[/size]
[size=45]Omar Al-Nadawy, a researcher specializing in Iraqi affairs and program director at the Center for Peace Empowerment in Iraq, speaks of government institutions controlled by political parties. This means that the winners will need to push for more appointments in the public sector, more contracts tainted by corruption, and more favorable conditions for their adoption to dislodge competition and leave the private sector. Therefore, as long as there are sufficient inflows of money, no one is forced to enter difficult decisions such as reducing financial subsidies or freezing appointments.[/size]
[size=45]El-Nadawy's reference to corruption is another notorious challenge. In 2012, for example, Iraq embarked on an ambitious plan to build 1,200 new schools. However, the project was suspended due to corruption investigations, according to the report of the Organized Crime and Corruption Commission, and only 10% of the project was completed.[/size]
[size=45]"There was low participation in the elections, and this puts the government under great pressure to meet the needs of the people," Tabaqali said.[/size]
[size=45]Researcher Jiyad says that there is another challenge for Iraq, which is the seriousness of the political stalemate, which would delay the budget and harm all sectors of the economy. In 2014 and 2020, the political debate led to the failure to pass a budget.[/size]
[size=45]Jiyad went on to say, "Currently, there is no budget for 2022 in Iraq, so we are now spending according to the 2021 budget on a month-to-month average." Referring to a law that determines spending in the absence of the adoption of a new budget.[/size]
[size=45]It is expected that the population of Iraq will reach 50 million by 2030, which will constitute more pressures and challenges on the government in providing jobs and public services.[/size]
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