Parliamentary Finance criticizes the ministries' retention of 40 trillion dinars from the budget at

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[size=52]Parliamentary Finance criticizes the ministries' retention of 40 trillion dinars from the budget at the expense of the governorates[/size]

[size=45]Baghdad / Firas Adnan[/size]
[size=45]The Finance Committee in the House of Representatives is preparing to hold a unified meeting with the governors to find out their needs from the budget, criticizing the federal ministries’ retention of 40 trillion dinars.[/size]
[size=45]Committee member Representative Jamal Cougar said, "The Finance Committee, in its sessions with ministers regarding the budget, aspires to reach three main points."[/size]
[size=45]And Cougar continued, “The first point: Are the numbers mentioned in the budget exaggerated, and thus knowing the possibility of reducing them or making a transfer regarding them?”[/size]
[size=45]He pointed out, “The second point: researching how resources are distributed, as some paragraphs in the government project for the budget were vague, such as the phrase (other banks) or (special programs). We want to know what is meant by these unclear phrases, and then determine the extent of the need.” she has".[/size]
[size=45]And Cougar stated, “The third point: striving to achieve justice between ministries, governorates, and sectors, and this requires the continuation of discussions, whether with ministers or governors, until full satisfaction is reached with all the numbers mentioned in the table attached to the draft budget.”[/size]
[size=45]And he stressed, “The House of Representatives, through the Finance Committee, will exercise its competence regarding the budget that authorizes it to transfer between chapters or reduce the total amounts. As for the increase, which is necessary and with the approval of the government, it is an unlikely option because the budget came in very high numbers.”[/size]
[size=45]Cougar added, "Reducing the budget deficit must be through sacrificing either some operational or investment amounts allocated to projects, and we have no third option."[/size]
[size=45]And he continues, "The conviction that crystallized in the Finance Committee after we held sessions with the Minister of Planning, Muhammad Tamim, last week, stating that the investment budget remains the same without a reduction, because we found an exaggeration in some aspects of the operational budget that we will go to and reduce."[/size]
[size=45]And Cougar continues, “Some of the ministries can save on their expenses and transfer unnecessary expenses at the present time to future budgets.”[/size]
[size=45]And he stressed, "Parliament will make every effort so that the investment budget is not a victim of high operating expenses."[/size]
[size=45]Cougar added, however, that “any drop in oil prices, along with the decline in state resources, will put us in front of a major obstacle, and at that time we will resort to the sums of the investment budget.”[/size]
[size=45]And he continued, "Oil price expectations indicate that the price of a barrel will range between 80 dollars to 85 dollars, and we have a good surplus over the past years, just as we entered the fifth month, which means that the budget will be for the remainder of the year and not for a full year," and he finds that " All these indicators make us safe from any economic crack.[/size]
[size=45]And Cougar pointed out that "some governorates did not spend more than 10% of the allocations for the Emergency Support for Food Security and Development Law, which has been approved for nearly a year."[/size]
[size=45]He finds that “this budget, after its approval, the government will not be able to spend it 100%, and we will have a round, just as we had a round of about 29 trillion dinars from previous years, and it helps us cover the planned deficit of 64 trillion dinars.”[/size]
[size=45]And Cougar added, "The fear that we feel is not about the current deficit for the year 2023, but rather for the next two years if a law is enacted for three fiscal years, as required by the government."[/size]
[size=45]And he added, "Parliament does not have a specific date for approving the budget, and the talk that is taking place in the media about the possibility of presenting it to a vote in the middle of this month is very unlikely."[/size]
[size=45]And Cougar concluded, “The committee is in the process of hosting 22 ministers, 18 governors, and a group of bodies and institutions within days to complete these hostings; And to discuss its outputs and reach the final formulation of the law ».[/size]
[size=45]For his part, another member of the committee, Representative Mueen Al-Kadhimi, stated that “the discussions on the budget bode well, with the possibility of the government implementing its ministerial platform after making the necessary reduction in the amounts of the law.”[/size]
[size=45]Al-Kazemi added, "Dialogues with ministers are continuing to find out the needs of their ministries in terms of funds, according to fair measures, and based on the last budget that the House of Representatives voted on in 2021."[/size]
[size=45]He pointed out that "Parliament will take into account the new approach of the government of Muhammad Shia'a al-Sudani to advance the executive reality, and there is an approximate picture of the performance of the ministries and governorates."[/size]
[size=45]Al-Kazemi agrees with Cougar, that “there are amounts amounting to 9 trillion dinars that have not been disbursed from the Emergency Support for Food Security and Development Law, and they have been recently distributed to the governorates. They constitute important support, with two trillion dinars for oil-producing governorates and 2.5 trillion dinars for the development of regions.”[/size]
[size=45]And he talked about «efforts to increase the allocations for the development of the regions and make a reduction in the allocations of some ministries because we found in the government project that it is due to some extent to the central case by collecting 40 trillion dinars with the federal ministries and reducing the allocations of the governorates».[/size]
[size=45]And Al-Kazemi stated, "The Finance Committee is not with the central case, but rather the governorates must proceed with their role in implementing projects in order to serve their residents, especially as there are areas described as the poorest in Iraq and need to carry out strategic projects."[/size]
[size=45]And he noted, “The committee is in the process of holding a meeting that brings together all governors; To urge them to work and to know the percentage of their achievement in the development of the regions and what has been allocated from the law of emergency support for food security and development.[/size]
[size=45]And Al-Kazemi went on to say, "Parliament has great hope that the governorates will succeed in implementing projects and show their willingness to fully carry out their duties, especially at the service level, with popular satisfaction with the government's seriousness in implementing its commitments that it made before Parliament earlier."[/size]
[size=45]The House of Representatives had earlier completed the first and second readings of the budget law, recorded its observations on it and sent it to the Finance Committee, which is currently holding intensive meetings in order to present the final draft to a vote.[/size]
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