Baghdad / Hussein Hatem
The House of Representatives is preparing to open its first session next week, after a month-long legislative recess, as it intends to pass a set of important laws, on top of which is the 2023 budget bill.
Parliament began on the eighth of this month, a legislative recess that ended two days ago, and it was supposed to resume its sessions directly.
A member of the Parliamentary Finance Committee in the House of Representatives, Mueen Al-Kazemi, said in an interview with (Al-Mada), that “Parliament will begin to resume its sessions next week.”
Al-Kadhimi added, “One of the most important and most prominent laws awaiting Parliament is the general financial budget law for the year 2023.”
He explained that “the operational budget, which includes the salaries of state employees, rose from 42 trillion to 60 trillion dinars, which will exhaust the public budget in the future, and will mean serious problems in the event of a decline in global oil prices,” stressing the “necessity,” to find resources other than oil, by subsidizing The private sector, investment and the advancement of the agricultural and industrial reality.
He added that “one of the basic and urgent tasks of the House of Representatives is the ratification of specialized committees consisting of 25 committees,” stressing “the completion of the chairmanship of the committees and the number of their members.”
Al-Kazemi indicated, “The House of Representatives is determined to pass the laws passed since the previous sessions, which serve the citizen.”
In turn, a member of the Parliamentary Oil and Gas Committee, Ali Shaddad Al-Faris, said in an interview with (Al-Mada), that “the parliament bell will ring next week, opening the first session after the legislative recess.”
He added, “Members of the House of Representatives are seeking to move forward with important laws that are in the interest of the citizen.”
Al-Faris indicated that the committee “mostly concerns itself with the budget and oil and gas laws, and it is awaiting the final draft of the law by the federal government.”
And the Prime Minister, Muhammad Shia Al-Sudani, had confirmed during a press conference held last Tuesday that the government did not rush to send the 2023 budget to the House of Representatives because the issue needs more scrutiny in the status of financial obligations, pointing out that “the budget will include for the first time the government’s vision and the ministerial platform.” “.
In addition, a member of the Parliamentary Legal Committee, Taher Al-Battat, says, “There are many laws that the committee is working to legislate in the current session, especially laws that mainly concern citizens.”
Al-Battat added, “The number of laws that were read during the current session, a first reading, amounted to 31 laws, while the laws that were read for a second reading amounted to 10 laws and are ready for voting, after putting the final touches on them. As for the laws that were voted on, they are the food security law and the law criminalizing normalization.” “.
He pointed out that “broken laws mainly need political understandings in order to pass them, foremost of which is the oil and gas law, which we hope will be approved as soon as possible, because it is capable of resolving most of the outstanding problems between Baghdad and Erbil.”
It is noteworthy that the Kurdistan region’s share of the public financial budget for the year 2021 was set at 11 trillion and 482 billion and 394 million dinars, which included 8 trillion and 161 billion dinars as operating expenses, 3 trillion and 271 billion dinars for investment, and 923 billion and 434 million dinars as ruling expenses.
The size of the Iraqi federal budget for the year 2021 was more than 101 trillion dinars, and the price of oil was estimated at $45 per barrel, but the price of oil has risen to nearly double that price.
Search 4 Dinar 