The budget is considered “numbers on paper”… revenues for the first 4 months are 15% less than what Iraq expects
Despite the end of the first half of the current year, the Ministry of Finance began distributing estimates of current expenditures, revenues, and investment projects for the year 2024 to the ministries and governorates, in a late measure that came mainly due to the delay in approving the budget schedules, which did not take place until the second of this June by the House of Representatives.
Delay in schedules and spending plans, often making the numbers contained in the budget mere numbers on paper, not similar to the imposed reality, while Al-Sumaria News takes a look at the size of actual expenditures and revenues, not those planned in the budget, for the first four months of this year compared to what is in the budget.
#Revenues are 15% less than planned
The 2024 budget tables indicate that the estimated revenues for the year 2024 amount to 147.8 trillion dinars, which means that Iraq during the current year must achieve this amount, at a monthly average of 12.3 trillion dinars, divided into 10 trillion dinars oil revenues, and 2.2 trillion dinars. Non-oil revenues, bringing the total revenues for 4 months to more than 49 trillion dinars.
However, the reality shows that Iraq’s revenues during 4 months amounted to only 42 trillion dinars, meaning that the revenues achieved are 15% less than what Iraq plans in the budget.
Oil revenues amounted to a monthly average of 9.5 trillion, instead of the 10 trillion per month that was planned, and non-oil revenues amounted to 1.1 trillion instead of the 2.2 trillion dinars planned in the budget, and while it can be said that after June, that is, after the approval of the schedules, it is possible that the rate of non-oil revenues will rise. Oil revenues due to the imposition of new fees, but it is not expected to double from 1 to 2 trillion per month as the budget plans, and even if non-oil revenues increase, oil revenues cannot rise according to government measures, especially since oil prices are volatile and close in the first months. Of the year.
#Expenses are 45% less than planned
As for expenditures, the budget estimates them at 212 trillion dinars, meaning Iraq must spend 17.6 trillion dinars monthly, and within 4 months Iraq must spend 70.6 trillion dinars. However, the truth is that what Iraq spent during the first four months of the current year amounted to More than 37 trillion dinars only, meaning that Iraq spent only 52% of the planned spending.
However, it is expected that the pace of spending will increase after the schedules are approved, as spending is among the government decisions that it can take, unlike oil revenues, and if spending increases, the risk will increase, as the percentage of spending increases and reality approaches the plan, with a decline in the percentage of revenues achieved. Far from its planned size, it will increase the deficit that was not covered by the budget, that is, it can be described as a “sudden deficit” that was not planned for or loans or debts were not allocated to pay it, as happened with the deficit that was originally in the budget and how to address it is planned.
Burathanews.com