Iraq parliament agrees on 17 percent budget share for KRG

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – Iraq’s parliament agreed a 17 percent share of the national budget for the autonomous Kurdistan region on Wednesday, despite efforts by former prime minister Nouri al-Maliki’s Shiite Dawa party to cut the annual allocation.

"The Iraqi parliament passed and fixed the Kurdistan region's 17 percent budget share," Sarhan Ahmed, a Kurdish MP in the Iraqi parliament, told Rudaw.

He explained that the proposal to keep the allocation at 17 percent – as specified in the Iraqi constitution – was accepted despite opposition by the Dawa bloc, which on Monday had proposed a reduction to 13 percent.

Ahmed said Maliki’s bloc had asked for yet another hearing on the proposal, but "the parliament speaker rejected their call and considered it illegal."

The proposal to cut Kurdistan’s share of the budget was condemned by Kurdish MPs in the Iraqi parliament at an emergency session on Tuesday.

Iraq’s Minister of Finance Hoshyar Zebari has warned that “reducing Kurdistan’s share of the budget would dismantle Iraq’s political process.”