Iraq’s parliament expects to vote on budget this week

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region — After months of wrangling, discussions over Iraq’s 2021 budget are coming to a close. The Kurdistan Region’s share should finalized within days and the bill put to a vote in parliament by the end of the week, the head of the legislatures’ finance committee told state media. 

“The finance committee has handled the Kurdistan Region file in a technical and professional manner, away from any political influence. And after this section is finalized within the next two days, the bill will be voted on by the end of this week,” head of Iraqi parliament’s finance committee Haitham al-Jiboury said on Sunday.

The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) delegation, led by Deputy Prime Minister Qubad Talabani, is expected to return to Baghdad early this week. He has made several trips to the Iraqi capital to hammer out an agreement over the Kurdistan Region’s share of the federal budget, and oil and customs revenues.

Iraqi lawmakers have criticized the Kurdistan Region’s independent oil sales and want the federal government to have exclusive control.

Last month, more than 100 Iraqi MPs signed a letter asking that the 2021 budget bill oblige the Kurdistan Region to hand over all its oil to the State Organization for Marketing of Oil (SOMO) in exchange for federal funds.

“Iraq’s revenue is federal. The oil of Basra, the Kurdistan Region, and any other province shall be under the supervision of the Iraqi government, and the Kurdistan Region should abide by this,” Alaa Rubai, an MP from the Sairoon alliance – the parliament’s biggest political bloc, led by Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr – told Rudaw’s Mustafa Goran in January.

The 2021 budget bill was approved by the Iraqi Council of Ministers and sent to parliament for deliberation on December 21. The bill included a 71 billion dinars (approximately $49 billion) deficit, however according to Jiboury, that has been reduced to 26 trillion dinars (approximately $18 billion).

Iraq is in an economic crisis, thanks in part to a global crash in oil prices earlier in 2020 and the coronavirus pandemic. Baghdad failed to pass a budget for 2020. In November, lawmakers passed the Fiscal Deficit Coverage Bill approving loans to cover civil servant salaries for the last two months of the year.