More than four years ago this year, the federal budget is still oscillating between the Ministry of Finance and the Council of Ministers, while the House of Representatives waits for the tables to reach it in order to view them and make whatever amendments it deems necessary to vote on and then return them again to the government to proceed with its implementation. Specialists attribute this delay in approving the budget. Finance has not completed operational expenditure schedules and that this will be reflected in investment projects, while others confirm that the budget has been approved but the government has not yet issued implementation instructions.
The Minister of Culture, Ahmed Fakak Al-Badran, said last Saturday that the Council of Ministers is awaiting the arrival of the schedules from the Ministry of Finance for the purpose of discussing them and passing them to Parliament for the purpose of voting on them, pointing out that when the schedules arrive, the Council will vote on them.
In this regard, economic expert Abdul Rahman Al-Mashhadani said, during an interview with Al Aalem Al Jadeed, that “there are several reasons for the delay in approving the budget schedules for the year 2024, one of which is that the Ministry of Finance has not completed the operational expenditure schedules yet, which were supposed to be completed in September or October 2023.”
He added, “The Ministry of Finance had previously circulated a letter dated January 16 to all state departments, institutions, and bodies, including the Kurdistan Region’s ministries and institutions, requesting that they provide them with detailed schedules of employees, including numbers, names, and salaries, as well as due allocations and imposed deductions.”
Al-Mashhadani continues, “The Ministry of Finance’s letter was supposed to be answered by state institutions at the end of last March, but the increase in the allocations for salaries of Kurdistan Region employees in the general budget, which is estimated at nine trillion dinars, called on the Ministry of Finance to make amendments to the schedules, but also, this is not considered an excuse for the ministry’s delay.”
He points out that “the investment budget in the governorates has contributed to delaying the approval of the result of the governorate council elections, as the time given to the governorate councils to discuss investment projects and the decisions they issued were included in the budget tables, also contributed to the delay after the matter was limited to the governors previously.”
He warns that “the negative impact of the delay in approving the schedules may be reflected in new investment projects not previously included in the tripartite budget (2023 – 2024 – 2025), as these projects need new approval from Parliament, but their impact is not extremely harmful to the validity of the budget, especially since the operating budget It is approved and its basic paragraph related to salaries, wages, social protection, and retirees, in addition to the governing expenses such as the ration card and the purchase of wheat and medicines, as well as the interest and installments of the public debt, are all valid and payable, even if the schedules are not approved, as happened in the years 2020 and 2022.”
Al-Mashhadani confirms that “the government is currently working within the tripartite general budget law approved by the Iraqi Parliament, meaning that the approval of the 2024 budget is implicit, and the budget is currently within the normal rates in effect according to the system of 1/12 of last year’s budget.”
On April 30, Prime Minister Muhammad Shiaa Al-Sudani discussed with the Acting Speaker of the House of Representatives, Mohsen Al-Mandalawi, the completion of the 2024 budget schedules and sending them to the House of Representatives for a vote.
For his part, economic expert Mustafa Akram Hantoush indicated, during an interview with Al Aalem Al Jadeed, that “the 2024 budget was approved, but the government did not issue instructions for its implementation due to the increase in the budget amount for this year to 228 trillion dinars. There are many transfers within its doors, and therefore the government turned in another direction, there are new budget schedules instead of implementing the previously approved 2024 budget, and this is a reason for the delay in approval.
He explains, “In the absence of budget schedules, the government falls within the Financial Management Law No. 6 of 2019 and operates on the 1/12 system, meaning it follows the same spending system that occurred in the year 2023, but the problem is that this delay will be reflected in new projects as well as the salaries of employees and those newly covered by social welfare where recruits require approval of the increase in the budget amount to cover these salaries.”
It is noteworthy that the House of Representatives voted on June 12, 2023, on the federal budget law for the years 2023, 2024, and 2025, in an initiative that is the first of its kind in the country’s history in terms of the size of the budget as well as the number of fiscal years, with a value of 197 trillion and 828 billion dinars, with a financial deficit of 63 billion dinars. One trillion dinars, or nearly a third of the budget.
For his part, during an interview with Al Aalem Al Jadeed, economic expert Hammam Al-Shamaa holds Prime Minister Muhammad Shiaa Al-Sudani responsible for delaying the approval of the budget due to the “unfamiliar” tripartite general budget system.
He explains that “the reason for following the 1/12 spending plan is that the budget tables created a large and enormous deficit that was unprecedented in the entire history of budgets, which led to problems that may be difficult to solve regarding providing liquidity to cover spending.”
He concludes by saying, “The Sudanese government is now relying on the method of spending through electronic payment packages in order to reduce the need for cash, but it has failed in that, and delaying the approval of the schedules does not have an effect as much as it makes the government control spending according to its will and desire.”
On February 1, the Parliamentary Finance Committee revealed the latest developments in the financial budget for the year 2024, indicating that it would rise to 206 trillion dinars instead of 199 trillion dinars, and in late March, the government took a surprising step, increasing the size of the current year’s budget to 228 trillion dinars.
Members of the House of Representatives criticized the government’s delay in sending the amended budget schedules for the current year 2024 for study and approval, despite the facilities it enjoys as it is part of a three-year tripartite budget that only needs some adjustments in the numbers of the spending and revenue chapters, claiming that it violated the legal timings regarding the budget and others have become commonplace in the country.
