Al-Maliki’s coalition pledges approval of the budget to resolve the differences between Erbil and Baghdad

Shafaq News / The representative of the State of Law bloc, Muhammad Al-Shammari, pledged, on Sunday, the approval of the draft budget law for the current year, to resolve the differences and outstanding issues between Erbil and Baghdad.

Al-Shammari said, in a statement to Shafaq News agency, that the differences and outstanding issues between the federal government and the Kurdistan Regional Government, in addition to changing the exchange rate of the dollar, all of these matters caused a delay in voting on the draft budget law in the Council of Ministers.

He added that voting on the budget law and sending it to Parliament is linked to resolving the differences between Erbil and Baghdad, but he added that there is no specific date for sending the budget law to Parliament.

Last week, a delegation from the Kurdistan Regional Government visited the capital, Baghdad, and engaged in a round of dialogues with the ministries of finance, planning, and oil, to return today to resume discussions about the region’s share of the budget, in addition to working on the legislation of the oil and gas law and other issues.

It is noteworthy that the financial budget for the past year 2022 was not approved by the Council of Ministers and the House of Representatives due to the turmoil that Iraq witnessed after the early elections in October 2021, which escalated to dangerous levels that ended with the events of the Green Zone, with armed confrontations between supporters of the Sadrist movement and the security forces, which claimed lives. Dozens and hundreds injured.

After the end of the crisis, with the agreement of the political blocs to elect the President of the Republic and to grant confidence to the government of Prime Minister Muhammad Shia’a al-Sudani, the latter pledged that he would present the draft federal budget law for the year 2023 as soon as possible.

Shafaq.com