May 28. (EUROPE PRESS) –
The Iraqi Government has finally decided to postpone, for the time being without a date, the expected vote on its General Budgets initially scheduled for the last minute of this past Saturday after the numerous complaints presented by the authorities of Iraqi Kurdistan about the constitutional validity of some of the sections presented from Baghdad.
In general terms, the Kurdish authorities denounce that the General Budgets fail to comply with the recent agreement to normalize relations with the federal government in Baghdad, which was intended to address years of marginalization and inequalities in the distribution of oil benefits with Iraqi Kurdistan.
The Kurds denounce, for example, that the allocation of powers for the sale of Kurdish oil has fallen to the federal State Oil Marketing Organization of Iraq (SOMO), and they also oppose the reduction from seven to five years of the term granted to Kurdistan for the payment of its debts.
The Kurdish authorities are also opposed to the creation of an account for oil revenues from the Kurdistan region at the country’s Central Bank, which could be accessed by the Iraqi Finance Ministry. The Kurds demand that, in the event that any member of the federal government has access to this account, it be the prime minister of the country and no one else.
The Kurdish-Iraqi president, Nechirvan Barzani, has declared himself “deeply concerned” about changes that “try to violate the constitutional rights of the Kurdistan region”, are “contrary to national responsibility” and “will only produce disappointment and will complicate the political stability of the country”, according to statements collected by the Kurdish news agency Rudaw.
For this reason, the Iraqi government has decided to postpone the vote and will meet this Monday with the purpose of addressing the fundamental complaints of the Kurdish authorities, as the vice president of the Iraqi Parliament, Shakhawan Abdullah, announced this Sunday in comments collected by the portal Iraqi news outlet Bas News.
Abdullah, in fact, has gone so far as to request the suspension of the committee responsible for drafting the sections that have so infuriated the Kurdish authorities, understanding that this panel has been formed irregularly.
“From what I have read, the Finance Committee made these decisions at a meeting in which 24 attendees participated, when parliamentary regulations limit the number of members to 21. The norm dictates that this kind of negligence must be responded to with a suspension “, he explained in comments collected by the Kurdish agency Rudaw.
The delay of the budgets is a disappointment and a setback for all parties, aware of their importance for the development of the country.
It should be remembered that the special representative for Iraq of the United Nations General Secretariat, Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert, requested at the beginning of this year their immediate adoption as a prelude to an economic reform that addresses the concerns of the population regarding the poor distribution of of the benefits of crude oil, the excess of bureaucracy and the almost permanent suspicions of corruption on the authorities.
