Kurdistan Region announces its commitment to federal budget deficit law
ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – An official heading a Kurdistan Region delegation charged with negotiating with Iraq's federal government in Baghdad announced on Tuesday that the region is now committed to a recently passed but controversial budget law that includes provisions which in the past it has said were unconstitutional.
"The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) officially addressed the federal government today and confirmed that it has no objection in implementing the provisions contained in the Fiscal Deficit Law," said regional Minister of State for Negotiation Affairs with the Federal Government Khalid Shwani during a press conference held with other members of the negotiating delegation in Erbil.
The Iraqi parliament in mid-November passed a budget deficit law with a majority of its members in the absence of representatives from the Kurdistan Region, who boycotted the session over disagreements about a clause that Kurdish lawmakers described as “unfair” for the autonomous region’s share in the federal budget.
Shwani added that the KRG had “asked the federal government to proceed with the implementation of the article that is related to the region of the borrowing law,” indicating that the concerned authorities in the region were instructed to carry out the necessary procedures to start the implementation of the law and the obligations of the regional government.
"We have asked the federal government to hold a joint technical meeting for the related authorities to implement this law, in order for each party to implement its side of the obligations stipulated in the law," Shwani added.
Shwani stressed that the Kurdistan Region’s approval of the law is not a new matter and this was clarified in an official letter from Prime Minister Masrour Barzani to his federal counterpart, Prime Minister Mustafa Kadhimi.
"We call on the federal government to take the necessary measures to start implementing this article, and we ask it to secure the Kurdistan Regional Government's financial dues from its share and that is approved in the Fiscal Deficit Financing Law passed by Parliament last month," the regional minister said.
He went on to say, "We believe that there is no longer any legal or political justification that hinders sending the financial dues approved in the law to the Kurdistan Regional Government."
Barzani said that the Kurdistan Region had not received any of its allotted amount of the budget for the months of May, June, July, and October, in addition to salary disbursements for Peshmerga forces, despite its inclusion in the allocations of the Ministry of Defense.
Barzani pointed out that this amount was agreed upon after the federal government deducted all oil and non-oil imports of the region from its payments.
The KRG announced on Monday that a delegation of legislators from the Kurdistan Parliament will visit Baghdad next week for talks with the Iraqi government on the autonomous region’s share of the 2021 budget.
Editing by John J. Catherine