KRG to ‘soon’ submit first budget bill to parliament in eight years: deputy PM

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region — The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) will “soon” submit a budget bill for the year 2021, deputy prime minister Qubad Talabani said on Monday – the first budget bill to be submitted in eight years, a pause the government has attributed to the economic crisis.

Deputy PM Talabani led a KRG delegation to the Kurdistan Parliament, to brief the blocs and relevant committees about the KRG’s deal with Baghdad on Iraq’s 2021 federal budget bill. 

Talabani told the MPs that they are in the final stage of preparing the 2021 budget bill and will submit it to the parliament “soon,” a statement from the parliament quoted him as saying.

Hemin Hawrami, deputy speaker of the parliament, called on the KRG to accelerate the the bill’s submission, according to the same statement. 

The KRG’s last budget bill was for the year 2013. The KRG attributed the break in bills to the emergence and advance of the Islamic State (ISIS), and the cut in the KRG’s share of the federal budget from Baghdad in the years that followed – both of which took bites out of the KRG’s available income.

The KRG has failed to pay its civil servants on time and in full for most of the last seven years, including in recent months.

Erbil has been heavily reliant on its federal budget share from Baghdad to pay its civil servants and to undertake service projects since 2003.

The KRG’s 2013 budget bill was based on its 16.9 trillion dinars of income – 14.4 trillion of which was from its budget share in Baghdad. 

Talabani announced on December 22 that Erbil and Baghdad had reached a deal on Iraq’s federal budget bill for 2021, which “keeps the common interest of all Iraqi people, including the people of Kurdistan Region.”

The KRG’s share of the budget is 12.67 percent, the same as in 2019, he added – "less than what we expected and deserve”.

Kurdish politicians and representatives in Baghdad have expressed fear that once the bill arrives at Iraqi parliament, the part about Kurdistan Region could be removed, due to the passage of Fiscal Deficit Coverage Bill on November 12 without the presence of Kurdish MPs, who stormed out of the session.

The law allowed the Iraqi government to borrow 12 trillion Iraqi dinars ($10 billion) from the country's central bank. However, it prevents the KRG from getting any share unless they hand over an amount of oil determined by the State Organization of Marketing of Oil (SOMO). 

Hassan al-Kaabi, first deputy speaker for the Iraqi parliament said on Tuesday afternoon that the federal budget bill has arrived in parliament on Tuesday. 

Talabani told reporters on Monday that "If the [Iraqi] budget is approved, we, as the KRG, are ready to deliver 250,000 barrels per day of Kurdistan Region oil through SOMO.”

Kurdistan Region Prime Minister Masrour Barzani called on December 23 for the United Nations (UN) to “attend the discussions between the Kurdistan Region and the federal government as a third party, so that the rights and duties of each side are clear,” read a KRG statement.