Ambiguity in investment projects after the delay in approving the budget

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[size=52]Ambiguity in investment projects after the delay in approving the budget[/size]

[size=45]Baghdad / Hussein Hatem[/size]
[size=45]The first third of 2022 is about to end without an “investment budget,” and Iraq, which mainly depends on selling oil to cover the state’s financial expenses, is going through an economic crisis that began years ago, from the drop in oil prices in global markets and the entry of ISIS in 2014, Until the outbreak of the Corona virus in 2020.[/size]
[size=45]According to deputies, the budget cannot be approved and voted on without the approval of the new government, while they hinted at the same time that if the formation of the government is delayed for a longer period, it is not excluded that the budget will be discussed under the caretaker government. On the other hand, economists warned of the repercussions of delaying the budget, suggesting the disruption of investment projects and the increase in poverty. According to official statistics, the economic crises led to a doubling of the poverty rate in the country in 2020, and it became 40% of the estimated population of 41 million, the same year in which the country's financial budget was not approved. In an interview with Al-Mada, MP Muhammad Al-Ziyadi said, "The 2022 draft budget needs an elected government, not an expired government." Al-Ziyadi added, "The law on emergency support for food security and development is not related to the budget law, as it is a proposal to reduce the burden on the classes affected by the rise in the dollar exchange rate."[/size]
[size=45]Al-Zayadi added, "Some forces agreed in principle to send the draft budget in the event of delaying the formation of the government and staying under the caretaker government."[/size]
[size=45]On March 31, the House of Representatives approved the country’s general budget bill for the year 2021, after months of being disrupted by the government and parliament, while raising the budget’s size before its approval to more than 101 trillion Iraqi dinars, equivalent to about $69 billion, an increase from the government’s estimates, which amounted to 96 trillion Iraqi dinars.[/size]
[size=45]In the 2021 budget, the government calculated the oil price on the basis of 42 dollars per barrel and an export rate of 3.25 million barrels per day, but Parliament calculated it at a price of up to 45 dollars. In turn, the economic expert Salam Sumaisem says in an interview with Al-Mada that "the government does not have a real estimate for the 2022 budget, especially after the rise in oil prices, because Iraq does not have final accounts through which it can study the rise in the country's revenues and supplement the ministries' budget with funds." “. Sumaisem added, "The economic policy and successive government programs regarding the country's economy are not understood," expecting "economic chaos in the coming period." And she pointed out, "The existing economic system in Iraq is not clear, despite the insistence of the outgoing government to implement what it called (the white paper), but it has not implemented anything except to reduce the value of the Iraqi dinar against the dollar." And she stressed that "the delay in the 2022 budget will lead to the disruption of investments and social benefits and the impoverishment of the poor." For his part, the economic advisor to the Prime Minister, Mazhar Muhammad Salih, gave a detailed explanation of the government’s financial disbursement mechanism during the current year, saying that “the mechanism contains two parts of expansionary spending, one of which comes from the application of Paragraph 13 of the effective Financial Management Law No. 6 of 2019 as amended. This is by disbursing 1/12 of the total actual current expenditures that took place during the fiscal year 2021.”[/size]
[size=45]Saleh added that "the second part depends on the spending ceiling of 35 trillion dinars that the emergency food support bill came with, which focused on three aspects; The first is operational by covering the income of the poor, represented by a grant of 100,000 dinars.[/size]
[size=45]As for the second aspect, according to Al-Kazemi’s advisor, it will be “by enhancing social welfare income, supporting and expanding the ration card, in addition to supporting crop prices,” while the third aspect will be implemented by “financing new projects within government investment spending.”[/size]
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