Parliamentary Finance denies returning the budget to the government: We will present it to a vote th

POSTED ON[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] BY [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

[size=52]Parliamentary Finance denies returning the budget to the government: We will present it to a vote this month[/size]

[size=45]Baghdad / Firas Adnan[/size]
[size=45]The Parliamentary Finance Committee denied its intention to return the budget to the government, confirming the vote on it during the current month, pointing out that the drop in oil prices raises fears of an increase in the deficit rates and its transformation from planned to real, stressing that the provinces have spent only 10% of the allocations for the development of regions contained in Emergency Support for Food Security and Development Law No. (2) of 2022, which was approved by Parliament last year.[/size]
[size=45]The day before yesterday, the committee hosted the Minister of Finance, Taif Sami, for the second time to discuss the ministry's budget, and the possibility of making transfers of amounts to ensure reducing spending and increasing revenues that supply the state treasury, as well as developing an appropriate strategy on the ministry's mechanism with regard to spending units.[/size]
[size=45]Some social media circulated the return of political differences over the budget law, which was the reason for delaying its submission to a vote.[/size]
[size=45]However, member of the Finance Committee, Representative Jamal Cougar, said, “The talk that some people are circulating about the existence of obstacles to presenting the budget law to a vote is an incorrect claim.”[/size]
[size=45]And Cougar continued, “The second reading of the government project includes a number of stages, the first of which is listening to the opinions of deputies, and this was done in three consecutive sessions that were open.”[/size]
[size=45]And he pointed out, “The second stage is by holding hosting sessions with ministers, governors, and officials of public spending units, and we are continuing to do so according to an intensive schedule that starts daily from ten in the morning until seven in the evening, and then starts at nine in the evening until twelve after midnight.”[/size]
[size=45]And Cougar stated, “The third stage begins with the formulation of the budget, and we have divided the committee into two teams, the first conducting hosting and studying schedules to conduct transfers, and the second to reformulate the materials sent by the government within the draft budget.”[/size]
[size=45]He denied, “There are obstacles or disagreements, but there are continuous and extensive discussions, and we hope to complete them as soon as possible,” stressing that “Parliament has no intention of returning the law to the government in order to draft it in accordance with the proposed amendments.”[/size]
[size=45]Cougar explained, “The budget will be approved definitively during this month, but it is not possible to set a fixed date for presenting the project to a vote or ending discussions on its texts within the Finance Committee.”[/size]
[size=45]And he indicated, “The session of the three presidencies with the political leaders of the State Administration coalition, held last week, had ended with setting the tenth of this month (the day after tomorrow) to complete the discussions on the budget.”[/size]
[size=45]Cougar added, "This date is very close and cannot be adhered to, because the current budget differs from its predecessors in three aspects."[/size]
[size=45]And he continues, “The first aspect is that this budget is the highest that reached the House of Representatives after 2003, with an amount of up to 200 trillion dinars.”[/size]
[size=45]And Cougar goes on, that the second aspect is the large deficit in the law estimated at more than 64 trillion dinars, and fears that this deficit will turn from planned to real under the weight of the drop in oil prices, as the barrel reached 72 dollars.[/size]
[size=45]And he added, “The draft budget came at a price of $70 per barrel, and we need a difference between 7 and 10 dollars.”[/size]
[size=45]And Cougar stated, “The Ministry of Oil informed us that it suggested that the price of a barrel be $65,” and he believed that “this large deficit, with the decrease in the price of a barrel of oil, will burden the budget and put it in front of a great responsibility.”[/size]
[size=45]And he continues, “The last budget approved by the House of Representatives was for the fiscal year 2021, with amounts of 164 trillion dinars, and the discussion on it continued for 45 days, while we are facing a budget higher than that, and therefore it needs more time to complete the discussions and final formulation.”[/size]
[size=45]And Cougar went on, that “the third new aspect of the budget is its status for three years, and this means that it will be exposed to any error or unfairness that will continue throughout the period allotted to it.”[/size]
[size=45]For his part, another committee member, Khalil Al-Dosky, stated that “the Finance Committee has held meetings with most ministries, and it is continuing this activity in order to prepare final formulations that include holding discussions to achieve fairness in the distribution of allocations.”[/size]
[size=45]Al-Dosky added, “Public spending units, whether federal or in the regions and governorates, cannot be convinced of their financial share in the budget and demand an increase in it.”[/size]
[size=45]And he pointed out, “The meetings showed that everyone is calling for an increase in his allocations, but the Finance Committee looks at the supreme interest of the country, and evaluates the volume of revenues and the effectiveness of expenditures for each ministry and governorate so that we distribute the sums according to the standards of justice and actual need.”[/size]
[size=45]And Al-Dosky stated, “The representatives fear the delay in implementing the projects, and according to the data of the Ministry of Planning, the sums for the development of the regions mentioned in the Emergency Support for Food Security and Development Law were spent only 10% of them.”[/size]
[size=45]However, he stated that “the Finance Committee will not stop supporting projects for the provinces and the development of the regions, on the contrary, most or all of the members with deduct sums from the current budgets towards the development of the regions.”[/size]
[size=45]And Al-Dosky concluded, that “determining the criteria for distributing the amounts, whether retroactively or from the date of approving the budget, will be subject to discussions within the Finance Committee before voting on the law, taking into account new issues, most notably the oil price variables.”[/size]
[size=45]It is noteworthy that the House of Representatives had ended discussions on the budget and referred the project to the Finance Committee in order to put the final wordings in coordination with the government before submitting it to a vote.[/size]
[size=45][You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]