Wednesday, July 10, 2024

Parliamentary Effort To Hold The Central Bank Accountable: It Costs Iraq Trillions And Threatens The Economy

  Politics     breaking     Central Bank of Iraq     Dollar crisis  2024-07-09 09:03  Shafaq News/ Member of the Legal Committee, Raed Al-Maliki, announced on Tuesday that he was seeking to hold the concerned authorities accountable, in particular the management of the Central Bank and the government, due to the failure of their measures to address the crisis of the devaluation of the Iraqi currency and the large gap between the official dollar exchange rate and the parallel price.

 Al-Maliki said, in a press statement received by Shafaq News Agency, that the continued failure of the Central Bank and the government to stabilize the dinar and reduce the gap between the two prices led to the waste of huge amounts of money and exacerbated the suffering of citizens.

He pointed out that these conditions resulted in the state incurring trillions of dinars and enriching the corrupt at the expense of the people, as the prices of most goods depend on the parallel price, which is much higher than the official price.

 Al-Maliki also pointed out that the failure of the government and the central bank to deal with the exchange rate crisis was embodied in several main aspects.

 The first of these aspects is the government’s inability to determine Iraq’s position on countries banned from using the dollar, as it failed to reach an agreement with the United States on how to Dealing with Iran and Syria, while other countries were able to find formulas of understanding in this regard.

The "second failure," according to Al-Maliki, was embodied in the government's inability to control unofficial ports and trade.

 It was unable to unify customs policy and prevent unofficial ports in the Kurdistan region, which includes more than 32 unofficial ports.

 As for the third failure, Representative Al-Maliki says, it is the failure to address the issue of small merchants, as they number more than 400,000 merchants in Iraq, who depend on the parallel dollar to avoid official procedures and taxes.

 Regarding the fourth failure, according to Al-Maliki’s statement, the government and the Central Bank were unable to address the problem of speculation and commissions in banks, as banks buy the dollar at the official price and sell it at higher prices without any legal accountability.

 Finally, the fifth failure, according to the statement, is to turn the file of providing travelers with dollars into a corruption case amounting to 600 billion dinars, as the dollar is collected for fictitious travel purposes without verifying the actual need for travel.

 Al-Maliki added that these points represent the most prominent reasons for the continuation of the exchange rate crisis and the waste of money, pointing to the entry of Arab and foreign banks into the currency auction and the increase in their profits at the expense of Iraq.

The representative stressed that he will use all constitutional, legal and popular means to confront this failure and mismanagement, calling on representatives from other blocs to support these endeavors in order to protect the interests of the Iraqi people.

 For his part, Representative Majid Shankali called on the Council of Ministers to take decisive and bold decisions related to the financial reality in Iraq.  In a statement received by Shafaq News Agency,

 Shankali stressed the need for these decisions to precede the process of building trust between the citizen and the banking system, which is currently suffering from a significant lack of this trust.  In this context,

 Şengali called for prohibiting dealing and trading in the dollar in buying and selling operations, in a step aimed at enhancing the use of the Iraqi dinar and reducing dependence on foreign currency.

He also called for not allowing citizens to hoard amounts exceeding ten thousand dollars or its equivalent outside banks, in order to limit... Financial evasion and the promotion of formal banking practices.

 Şengali also stressed the encouragement and stimulation of electronic dealing in financial transactions, noting the

 necessity of starting to implement these decisions gradually to avoid creating new crises, stressing that

these measures must be thoughtful and based on gradual steps to ensure achieving the desired financial goals without causing additional problems for citizens.  https://www.shafaq.com/ar/سیاسة/سعي-نيابي-لمسا-لة-البنك-المركزي-يكلف-العراق-تريليونات-ويهدد-الاقتصاد   

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