AJ
Government Advisor- The 2025 Budget Will Reach Parliament Before End of Ramadan
The Iraqi Prime Minister's advisor for economic affairs confirmed on Monday that there is a government-parliamentary understanding regarding the 2025 budget, expecting it to reach parliament before the end of Ramadan.
Mazhar Mohammed Saleh said, that there is an understanding between the Parliamentary Finance Committee, the Council of Ministers, and the Ministry of Finance regarding the budget schedules, stressing that there is an agreement on the date of sending it and voting on it.
Saleh explained that Article 77/ Second of the Federal General Budget Law for the year 2023 stipulates that the Ministry of Finance shall submit the budget tables annually, with the amendments that occur to operating and investment expenditures.
He added that the Ministry of Finance will send the 2025 budget tables to the Council of Ministers for discussion and voting, after which these tables will be sent to the House of Representatives.
Saleh indicated that the budget schedules are expected to reach Parliament before the end of Ramadan, which falls at the end of March.
Earlier, a responsible source in the Iraqi Ministry of Finance told Shafaq News Agency that the delay in sending the federal budget tables to the Council of Ministers is related to amendments to Article 12 of the Budget Law.
The Iraqi parliament recently approved an amendment to the general budget related to Article 12, which settles a dispute between the Kurdistan Region and the federal government over receiving the region’s oil.
In June 2023, the Iraqi Parliament voted on the draft general budget law for the fiscal years (2023, 2024, 2025), to approve special budget tables for those years, and they are sent by the Iraqi government to Parliament for voting.
Last February, the Iraqi Parliament voted to amend Article 12 of the budget law related to the costs of extracting oil from the Kurdistan Region.