Parliamentary Finance is confused by the large difference between the 2023 and 2024 budgets... and warns against stopping provincial projects, MAY 24

 Parliamentary Finance is confused by the large difference between the 2023 and 2024 budgets... and warns against stopping provincial projects

Member of the Parliamentary Finance Committee, Mustafa Al-Karawi, revealed today, Thursday (May 23, 2024), that service and urban projects, some of which are ministerial, have been halted due to the reduction in governorate allocations in the financial budget tables for the year 2024.

The Council of Ministers voted in an extraordinary session last Sunday on the budget schedules and referred them to the House of Representatives, which received them the day before yesterday, Tuesday.

Al-Karaawi said in a televised statement, followed by “Baghdad Today,” “We noticed in the budget tables that there was a reduction in allocations to the governorates, some of which reached 80% compared to what was allocated to them in last year’s budget, and this may cause projects to stop and not lead to covering their expenses and contractors’ dues, and this may be what may happen.” "It causes a problem and a gap in the issue of financing."

He stressed, "Projects, including ministerial ones, have been halted due to lack of funding," pointing out that "there is a turbulent indicator between the 2024 budget and last year in terms of project financing, and we will host the Ministers of Finance and Planning next week."

Al-Karaawi pointed out, “Preparing a list of clarifications and sending them to the Ministry of Finance about the reasons for the increase in expenditures, the mechanism for collecting oil and non-oil revenues, and the inflation of the financial deficit in the budget.”

He added, "The government has committed itself to collecting 27 trillion dinars in non-oil revenues during the year 2024, and we requested clarification from the Ministry of Finance about the mechanism for achieving this goal," noting that "there is an increase in the operating budget that reached 156 trillion dinars."

The parliamentary finance member expected that “the maximum time limit for approving the budget schedules will be before the end of the current legislative term on next June 9, so there will be an intensive program for the Finance Committee to discuss these schedules and find solutions to the problems in them.”

It is noteworthy that Prime Minister Muhammad Shiaa Al-Sudani revealed in a press conference following the cabinet session last Sunday the details of the budget schedules and said in the most prominent contents:

- Table (A) includes revenues totaling (144.336) trillion dinars, and Table (B) concerns total planned expenditures totaling (210.936) trillion dinars.

- The planned budget deficit amounted to (63.599) trillion dinars, and Table (C) is the centrally funded workforce table, amounting to (4,079,906) employees, and governing expenditures amounted to (10.042) trillion dinars.

- The investment budget for 2024 is (54.298) trillion dinars, and may reach 55 trillion dinars.

- Governorate allocations to local government programs with an investment allocation amounted to (10.633) trillion dinars in 2023, and we financed (3.333) trillion, based on fundamental requests from the governorates.

- The remainder of the allocation (7.333) trillion dinars is in a trust account, at the disposal of the provincial governments.

- Allocating approximately (8) trillion dinars to ongoing projects, including allocations in 2024.

- For the first time in the history of budgets, we exceeded spending by 50%.

The increase in debt repayment amounted to 3.9 trillion dinars. In 2023, the debt repayment was 12,751, and in 2024, we repaid 16.725 trillion.  link