Committee to discuss Iraqi budget bill, Kirkuk oil exports in Parliament: Abdul-Mahdi
ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – Iraqi Prime Minister Adil Abdul-Mahdi on Tuesday said a newly-formed committee of experts are due to visit parliament to address the issues of the 2019 draft budget bill and the resumption of Kirkuk’s oil exports through the Kurdistan Region.
“The committee includes representatives from all provinces and the region” and will “go to parliament on Sunday and Monday to present a series of arguments” on the pending issues, Abdul-Mahdi said during his weekly press conference in the Iraqi capital.
“The government is trying to find the correct formula,” Abdul-Mahdi said, stressing that “good relations between the two sides contributes to what is best for the Iraqi people as a whole.”
The government’s decision came after a recent session where lawmakers from a number of provinces and the Kurdistan Region voiced complaints regarding the budget bill, stating the division of resources was not reflective of the populations inhabiting each area.
The Iraqi Constitution does provide for population percentages to be an official factor in how the federal budget is to be allocated, the wording regarding how it is calculated being vague and open to different interpretations. Similarly, other imprecise constitutional provisions have led to seemingly intractable disagreement between various Iraqi factions.
Article 121 states that “Regions and governorates shall be allocated an equitable share of the national revenues sufficient to discharge their responsibilities and duties, but having regard to their resources, needs, and the percentage of their population.”
Another issue with the bill, Member of Parliament in Baghdad Mariwan Nadir recently stated, is the fact that it does not specify the newly-designated province of Halabja as a distinct national governorate.
Various Kurdish factions in Baghdad previously met with a delegation of experts on financial and budgetary policy to best protect the region’s interests. In the Iraqi parliament’s latest session on Monday, Kurdish MPs, along with Finance Minister Fuad Hussein, lobbied for the improvements to the bill.
Erbil has also spoken with Baghdad on resuming exports of Kirkuk’s oil through the Ceyhan pipeline, with the US urging the Iraqi government to comply with the initiative. The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) had previously been moving 300,000 barrels of oil per day from the province to Turkey.
Those exports were cut off in 2017 after Iraqi forces and Iranian-backed militias attacked Kurdish forces in Kirkuk, seizing the city and its nearby oil fields. Since then, up until recently, Baghdad has been trucking 30,000 barrels a day to Iran. Iraq stopped these exports before the US implemented the second round of sanctions on Tehran.
Editing by Nadia Riva