AL-SUDANI SUMMARIZES HIS GOVERNMENT’S ACHIEVEMENTS TWO YEARS AFTER ITS FORMATION
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Two years after the formation of the government, Al-Sudani celebrates the completion of 62% of the government program
Highlights of the speech of Prime Minister Mohammed Shia Al-Sudani during today’s cabinet session, Tuesday, October 29, 2024, on the occasion of the second anniversary of the formation of the government:
The government’s overall achievement rate of targets in various fields during the government’s term reached 62%.
🔷 We succeeded in prominent and important files, faced difficulties in other files, and were late in some details and files.
🔷 Over the course of two years, we stopped more than once to evaluate the course of work, and we issued 3 reports on the implementation of the government program.
🔷 Our achievement was not limited to one sector, nor to one city or governorate, but rather covered the districts, districts, and city centers.
🔷 The service and engineering effort team was dedicated to completing quick services, and we addressed stalled projects, some of which date back to 2005, through Cabinet decisions.
🔷 The number of stalled projects was (1471) projects. We resumed work on (555) projects for ministries, and the stalled projects decreased to (916) projects.
🔷 We resumed work on (442) contracts and projects at the governorate level, and the ongoing projects amounted to (8934) projects.
🔷 We focused on infrastructure projects, sewage treatment plants and networks, and the provision of drinking water, and until yesterday we included new projects due to population expansion.
🔷 The traffic congestion relief project was one of the most prominent projects in Baghdad, which has not seen a bridge since 1996, despite the expansion.
🔷 Last year, we started road and bridge projects related to the million-person visits, to serve millions of visitors, and the number of traffic accidents decreased.
🔷 We were late in providing some services, such as the water desalination project in Basra, and the required service at Iraqi airports, which is still below the required level.
🔷 We were late in preparing residential plots of land, and it was our obligation to start distributing 500,000 residential plots of land, and land is one of the complex problems that hinder residential projects.
🔷 In health, we opened new hospitals, specialized centers, health centers and primary care, and a large number of hospitals and health centers were rehabilitated.
🔷 In electricity, we achieved the highest production of electrical energy by reaching 27 thousand megawatts, and we started new projects, and opened projects to resolve grid bottlenecks, and others related to the combined cycle and new feeders.
🔷 We have taken an important step in solar energy, and work is underway on 15 projects with a total capacity of 5,720 megawatts.
🔷 At the housing level, we announced important residential cities that will bring about a qualitative shift in allocating housing units with all services to citizens.
🔷 We have made significant progress in school building projects, some of which are lagging behind, such as Project No. 1. This year, we will complete the Iraqi-Chinese agreement projects, and schools have been rehabilitated and restored in all governorates.
🔷 There is a project by the (Iraq Development Fund) that will end the issue of the need for schools according to a new vision related to purchasing the service.
🔷 The National Education Strategy 2022-2031, the Study in Iraq project, and scholarships for studies at reputable universities were launched.
🔷 In the axis of combating poverty, 962 thousand families were covered by social protection, an increase of 85%, which means that 7 million and 600 thousand individuals were covered by social protection.
🔷 130 million food baskets have been distributed monthly since the formation of the government, and over a period of two years.
🔷 We have activated the student grant, school nutrition, and tuition fees for those covered, people with disabilities, and children with diabetes, and added them to social protection and health insurance.
🔷 We targeted multidimensional poverty and poverty alleviation for families below the poverty line.
🔷 Government measures contributed to reducing the poverty rate in Iraq to 17.6% after it was 23%.
🔷 In the file of combating unemployment, the government addressed inherited problems by appointing hundreds of thousands of higher education graduates, contracts, and top graduates, and we launched the (Riyada) initiative for employment.
🔷 Government measures contributed to reducing the unemployment rate in general from 16.5% to 14.4%.
🔷 In combating financial and administrative corruption, we worked at several levels to reform the administrative institutions, and adopted a new philosophy in recovering funds and wanted persons, and achieved numbers in this field.
🔷 In the axis of economic and financial reform, the government has taken steps that constitute structural reforms in which all state institutions have contributed.
🔷 Overall inflation was reduced from 4.9% in 2022 to 3% in 2024.
🔷 We achieved a 6% increase in non-oil revenues, and increased tax revenues for the year 2024 by 23%.
🔷 The amounts collected from electronic payments reached (7.6) trillion dinars, after they did not exceed (2.4) trillion dinars in January 2023.
Highlights of the speech of Prime Minister Mohammed Shia Al-Sudani during today’s Cabinet session, Tuesday, October 29, 2024, on the occasion of the second anniversary of the formation of the government:
🔷 The establishment of the (Iraq Development Fund) represented the most important reforms included in the budget law, and represents a new vision to support the private sector, and we included an article related to granting sovereign guarantees for projects.
🔷 We have achieved a shift in offering investment opportunities and granting investment licenses in the field of industrial and agricultural projects.
🔷 We started localizing the pharmaceutical industry, opening several projects, and reaching 35% coverage of local needs after it was 10%, and it is hoped to reach 85% within 3 years.
🔷 The failure to properly implement the Social Security Law has had a negative impact on the private sector as companies, and has also undermined workers’ guarantees.
🔷 We have taken measures to support an attractive business environment for companies, register companies with tax departments, and provide customs facilities.
🔷 We face challenges at border crossings, despite the reforms and implementation of network connectivity, but the revenues of the crossings have not reached the required level, especially with regard to our crossings in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, and we need more measures to control them and unify the customs tariff.
🔷 We have been late in developing the tourism sector, and we have not invested in our religious, historical, archaeological and natural sites, despite their importance in supporting the national economy.
🔷 We have the right to achieve self-sufficiency in terms of strategic crops, and we need to work more to implement an agricultural vision according to the available water resources.
🔷 We have made decisions to establish a national mobile phone company, and we are waiting to complete the matter with international companies so that the service will be available and represent additional revenues for the state.
🔷 In the sports sector, there are advanced percentages of stadiums that have been completed and that are important to athletes.
🔷 We announced the Strategic Development Road project, and signed the quadripartite memorandum of understanding with Qatar, the Emirates, and Turkey, and work is ongoing to complete it.
🔷 We work in parallel with companies specialized in the design process for current railway rehabilitation projects, to be a second project until the development road project is built.
🔷 We announced the (Karbala-Najaf Train) and (Baghdad Metro) projects, and we are continuing negotiations with the sectoral entities and the consulting company.
🔷 The water management project with the Turkish side is one of the most important strategic projects that will ensure sustainability in the agricultural sector.
🔷 We have achieved advanced completion rates in the announced projects for the Grand Faw Port, including the docks, the submerged tunnel, the navigation channel, the container yard, and the link road.
🔷 We have reached an agreement with the countries of the international coalition to end the coalition’s mission within a declared time frame.
🔷 We were able to issue a resolution in the UN Security Council regarding the UN mission.
🔷 We face financial challenges through providing cash liquidity, controlling spending priorities, and shifting to a program budget according to the ministerial program.
🔷 We seek to increase revenues, rationalize spending, and digitally transform financial and customs transactions.
🔷 We work to subject all financial transactions to compliance and governance rules.
🔷 The old legislation does not keep pace with the current stage, and it disrupts the process of reconstruction, investment and services.
🔷 The region is going through developments as a result of conflicts, which directly affect the security and economic conditions in Iraq.
🔷 We are in the process of making a ministerial amendment according to performance and work indicators. It is not a political position towards this bloc or this party, but rather a desire to achieve more effective performance to meet the requirements of the stage and the aspirations of citizens.
🔷 We have completed an important entitlement, represented by the provincial council elections, after it was delayed for years.
🔷 The population census is one of the important entitlements that await us.
