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ERBIL, Kurdistan Region — MPs from leading blocs in the Iraqi parliament have spoken out on the Kurdistan Region’s oil exports to Baghdad, key to ongoing budget disputes between Erbil and Baghdad, saying Erbil must hand over all of its oil to receive 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 on Wednesday.
Muhammad Baldawi, an MP from the Shiite Al-Sadiqoun bloc, a party affiliated with the Iran-backed Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq militia, also said that the Kurdistan Region needs to hand over all revenues to the federal government.
“Only then might we send the region’s full share of the budget,” he said.
The 2021 budget bill was approved by Iraq’s Council of Ministers on December 21. Parliament has met twice to discuss the bill.
The Kurdistan Region’s share of the federal budget has attracted great opposition from Shiite MPs in the parliament.
On Saturday, more than 100 Iraqi MPs, mostly Shiite, signed a letter asking that the 2021 budget bill obliges the Kurdistan Region to hand over all its oil to the State Organization of Marketing of Oil (SOMO) in exchange for federal funds.
On December 22, Deputy Prime Minister of the Kurdistan Region Qubad Talabani announced Erbil and Baghdad had reached a deal on Iraq’s Federal Budget Bill for 2021 after months of disagreements. As a result of budget disputes and low oil prices, the Region’s civil servants went unpaid for most of 2020 – prompting deadly protests across the Kurdistan Region.
The deal “keeps the common interest of all Iraqi people, including the people of Kurdistan Region,” Talabani said at the time.
Talabani arrived in Baghdad on Monday to lead a delegation meeting with the Iraqi parliament regarding Erbil’s share of the federal budget, which has been a long-standing point of contention between the two governments.
The delegation met with President Barham Salih, and deputy speakers of the parliament on Monday to discuss Kurdistan Region’s share of the budget.
Deputy speaker of the Iraqi parliament Basheer Haddad told Goran on Wednesday that the delegation will return to Baghdad next week “to finalize their talks with the parliament and reach a deal that benefits both sides.”
Baghdad failed to pass a budget in 2020 because of political turmoil, record low oil prices, and the coronavirus pandemic. In November, Iraqi lawmakers passed the Fiscal Deficit Coverage Bill approving loans to cover civil servant salaries for the last two months of the year.
The bill passed with a majority vote, despite a walkout staged by Kurdish MPs, angered that Erbil is obliged to hand over an unspecified amount of oil in exchange for funds – a clause they said was not in the original bill.
In December 2019, Baghdad agreed to send Erbil a 12.67 percent share of the federal budget in exchange for 250,000 barrels of oil per day. Neither side fully abided by the agreement, however.
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