Iraqi Parliament Speaker joins Kurds in rejecting 2018 national budget bill

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region (Kurdistan 24) – Parliament Speaker Salim al-Jabouri on Monday said the Iraqi Parliament’s Presidency rejects the 2018 Iraqi national budget law due to legal and constitutional shortcomings.

During a press conference in Baghdad, Jabouri stated that the 2018 national budget bill, prepared by Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi and the Iraqi Council of Ministers, was “neither legal nor constitutional.”

Aside from the controversial reduction in the Kurdistan Region’s share of the national budget from 17 percent to 12.6 percent, many Sunni lawmakers—including those affiliated to Jabouri—have voiced objections to the proposed budgetary allotments to provinces with a Sunni majority.

“Our position is that the budget law does not have legal and constitutional requirements as outlined in the Iraqi Constitution,” Jabouri told reporters.

According to the Iraqi Parliament Speaker, the proposal for the budget law was not submitted to the Parliament on time.

“The Parliament should have received the budget law draft by Nov. 10,” but the submission was delayed for nearly 50 days, Jabouri said.

He added that the draft did “not reflect the demands and comments made by the governorates affected by [the war on the Islamic State], the Kurdistan Region, and oil-producing governorates.”

Since 2005, Kurdistan’s allotted share of the Iraqi budget has been 17 percent. However, Kurdish officials have claimed that, over the years, the Kurdistan Regional Government has never actually received the full 17 percent.

Editing by Karzan Sulaivany