{Iraq: Euphrates News} The Office of the Supreme Religious Authority, Grand Ayatollah Ali Al-Sistani, announced that tomorrow, Thursday is the last of the holy month of Ramadan.
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Imam Al-Sistani’s office said, in a statement received by {Euphrates News}, that: “The crescent of the holy month of Ramadan was seen with the naked eye after Wednesday’s sunset 29 Shaban in several places in Iraq and in some areas adjacent to it. Thus, Thursday will be the first day of the holy month, we ask God Almighty to help everyone in it for the benefit of business.”
Baghdad – Mawazine News The financial adviser to Prime Minister Mazhar Mohammed Saleh confirmed today, Wednesday, that the current cash leakage rate is more than 70 percent, while noting that this leakage has generated an illegal market that is engaged in usury and obscene interest.
Saleh told the official agency, who followed him /Mawazine News /, that “the habits of settling payments and dealing in paying the prices of transactions within the economic community are still based on a legacy of payment, payment and receipt in cash,” noting that “money issued for trading outside the operations of the banking system is a cash leak.”
He added, “The said cash leakage rate is more than 70 percent of the total cash issuance of the Central Bank of Iraq and perhaps more,” noting that “this matter does not help monetary policy to apply its tools in monetary stability adequately and comfortably.”
He added that “this is a cash reward that deducts from the income cycle and does not help the desired investment spending, in addition to the inactive role of this cash mass accumulated outside the banking system, which is exposed to various legal risks, disputes and attacks on monetary ownership rights.”
He explained that “if the cash loans provided by the banking system to the public are linked to the goals of economic development and poverty alleviation and with acceptable interest rates provided by bank deposits to the public itself, the massive cash leakage outside the banking system amounting to more than 70 trillion dinars, has made banks tied to the limits of cash lending associated with the few deposits to the public.”
He stated that “the market and the general public in the private sector still receive limited cash lending that constitutes only 13 percent of the gross domestic product,” pointing out that “an important part of that percentage came through the initiatives of the Central Bank of Iraq in 2015 and subsequent years in order to stimulate the financing and development macroeconomic movement due to the economic recession, although the private sector’s share of bank cash lending in industrialized countries exceeds an average of 106 percent of GDP.”
He stated that “the phenomenon of cash leakage and direct cash use came at the time when the world began to switch to digital money preceded by electronic payment to reduce transaction costs and raise the efficiency of payments,” explaining that “using liquid cash in our country still constitutes a high cost to cash trading services, whether in the operations of currency transfers, its calculation, its promise and sorting in every single cash transaction, in addition to the risks resulting from preserving and trading with large amounts of cash outside the banking system or when settling payments between individuals.”
He stressed that “the cash spill of 70 percent of the total cash issue of the Central Bank of Iraq currently amounts to about 70 trillion dinars, has generated an illegal cash market that deals with (riba and outrageous interest), in which the annual borrowing cost as illegal cash dividends, reaches about 80 percent annually,” explaining that it is “very expensive for illegal borrowers, which hinders development and increases the costs of unregulated economic activity.” Ended 29/m99
Shafaq News / The international organization “New Human” (New Humanitarian) conducted an assessment of the role of the United Nations in Iraq, wondering whether, 20 years after the US invasion, the Iraqi authorities and the Kurdistan Regional Government can apply to take on more responsibilities in providing support to vulnerable and vulnerable segments.
The NGO report, translated by Shafaq News, explained that after the US invasion and more than 5 years after declaring victory over ISIS, the United Nations is on the path of a major change in how it provides assistance in Iraq.
Drought and rising prices
The website specialized in humanitarian issues quoted a United Nations report issued last February under the title “An overview of the humanitarian transition in Iraq” starting in 2023, as saying that the United Nations “has shifted its focus from a humanitarian response plan only, to approaches that focus on development, because this will better serve the needs of all citizens in Iraq, not only those affected by the crisis caused by ISIS.”
The report considered that the needs of the Iraqis undoubtedly remain, with about 1.2 million people still internally displaced, and that many of those who returned to their areas are struggling to survive, in addition to the phenomenon of drought and war in Ukraine, which led to high food prices.
However, the report pointed out that the United Nations over the past few years,
She asked for and received much less funding for the aid she coordinates, and now says it’s time for the Iraqi government in Baghdad and the Kurdistan Regional Government to take on greater responsibility in securing care for citizens, with the UN playing a supporting role for them.
The report added that after a year of political stalemate, a government has been formed since late October 2022, but with the majority of displaced persons camps in the Kurdistan Region, and in light of the debate between the two governments over the budget and who should take responsibility for assistance, concerns are raised about who will apply to take over the assistant of the most vulnerable segments in a country that is regularly ranked below the rank of global corruption.
the human image
The report said the United Nations classified the humanitarian crisis in Iraq in 2017 as “one of the largest volatile crises in the world.”
According to UN statistics, by the time Iraq declared victory over ISIS, there were about 11 million people, in a country of 37 million people (now more than 40 million), in need of some form of humanitarian assistance.
He added that the numbers of the displaced were changing according to flight or return between 2014 and 2017, but in total there were about six million people.
Displacement camps
Starting in 2019, Iraq began to close its camps in an attempt to encourage more people to return, and some of them were also reclassified as “informal camps,” with almost no services, and at present, there is only one official camp for displaced people within the areas of federal Iraq, and 25 in the areas of the Kurdistan Regional Government.
As part of the 2022 humanitarian response plan to deliver aid across Iraq, the UN said some 2.5 million people, including 1.1 million children, remain dependent on some form of humanitarian assistance, with 995,000 people considered “highly at risk,” the report said.
According to the report, this includes hundreds of thousands of internally displaced people who have not been able to return to their areas, and there are also about 258,000 Syrian refugees, most of them in the areas of the Kurdistan Region.
change of the United Nations
The report explained that the United Nations has moved from an approach focused on emergency assistance, to development, which means that its agencies and some of its partners, have stopped managing the camps or will gradually abolish its management of camps and providing services to most (but not all) internally displaced people, while handing over responsibility for this to local authorities.
In addition, there will be no inter-agency humanitarian planning process, with which the UN and the NGOs it works publish an annual assessment of the needs required, and then appeal to the international community to raise funds to do their work.
Last year, the organizations requested $400 million and received $335 million, the report noted.
For comparison, the report continued that during the height of the Iraq crisis, and with the media focusing on the battle to liberate Mosul in 2016, the United Nations appealed to raise $860.5 million, in addition to another $284 million to support those fleeing the ISIS attack, and the organizations received $1.9 billion, a figure that includes funds granted outside the plans of the United Nations.
The report quoted the representative of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in Iraq, Jean-Nicolas Beez, as saying that the Iraqi and Kurdish authorities had enough time to prepare for this transition process, and that they want the Iraqi authorities and the Kurdistan Regional Government to take joint responsibility for humanitarian issues, adding that he had informed those responsible for the transition since before its arrival in Iraq (in November 2021).
In November 2022, Pease said that “through financial means, manpower and knowledge, Iraq has the capacity to respond to the needs of its population.”
Kurdistan Region
But the organization had spoken with the international aid coordinator for the Kurdistan Regional Government Dindar Zebari last November when the transition was in its infancy, and said at the time that the usual budget shortfall of the provincial government meant that it would not be able to fill the funding gap left by the transformation of UN policy, explaining that “a request was made by the authorities to our international counterparts and NGOs to continue their financial support for refugees and displaced persons in the camps.”
“The Kurdistan Regional Government has been left alone in the process of meeting these needs and supporting the displaced and refugees,” he added, noting that “for the transition process to succeed, there is a need for a participatory leadership of the government.”
The report also quoted Awat Mustafa, a representative of the Barzani Charitable Foundation (BCF) independently funded and carrying out work in the region’s camps, as saying his organization did not expect to fill the funding gap.
As for the media office of Prime Minister Mohammed Shiaa Al-Sudani, it said last November that the Iraqi government is working on developing an integrated plan for the camps of internally displaced persons, but did not confirm the funding expected to be shared with the Kurdistan Regional Government.
International aid organizations
It is not entirely clear who will fill the gap in coordination between NGOs and UN agencies, as assistance operations shift away from the UN’s coordinated system, the report noted.
He pointed out that major international NGOs say they continue to work in Iraq through funding that comes directly from donors and not through annual appeals led by the United Nations.
This situation may not apply to local NGOs that often do the bulk of the work on the ground, he added.
Overall, NGOs have expressed a range of multiple concerns, including the pace of the transition, how the Iraqi government is involved in changing leadership, and what this transition means when completed, for particularly vulnerable groups.
Samar Abboud, a director at the international non-governmental rescue committee working in Iraq, was quoted by the report as expressing concern about “the rapid timeline for the humanitarian transition in Iraq, and the way it will affect the most vulnerable Iraqis in the post-conflict phase.”
The report concluded by saying that the United Nations now considers that emergency assistance is not intended to continue forever, and with the continuation of the transition process, and Iraq’s transformation into a less urgent destination for the de decombusive humanitarian aid sector, there are still many questions about whether the federal authorities and in the region, will be able to support the needy, without answers.
Shafaq News / The international organization “New Human” (New Humanitarian) conducted an assessment of the role of the United Nations in Iraq, wondering whether, 20 years after the US invasion, the Iraqi authorities and the Kurdistan Regional Government can apply to take on more responsibilities in providing support to vulnerable and vulnerable segments.
The NGO report, translated by Shafaq News, explained that after the US invasion and more than 5 years after declaring victory over ISIS, the United Nations is on the path of a major change in how it provides assistance in Iraq.
Drought and rising prices
The website specialized in humanitarian issues quoted a United Nations report issued last February under the title “An overview of the humanitarian transition in Iraq” starting in 2023, as saying that the United Nations “has shifted its focus from a humanitarian response plan only, to approaches that focus on development, because this will better serve the needs of all citizens in Iraq, not only those affected by the crisis caused by ISIS.”
The report considered that the needs of the Iraqis undoubtedly remain, with about 1.2 million people still internally displaced, and that many of those who returned to their areas are struggling to survive, in addition to the phenomenon of drought and war in Ukraine, which led to high food prices.
However, the report pointed out that the United Nations over the past few years,
She asked for and received much less funding for the aid she coordinates, and now says it’s time for the Iraqi government in Baghdad and the Kurdistan Regional Government to take on greater responsibility in securing care for citizens, with the UN playing a supporting role for them.
The report added that after a year of political stalemate, a government has been formed since late October 2022, but with the majority of displaced persons camps in the Kurdistan Region, and in light of the debate between the two governments over the budget and who should take responsibility for assistance, concerns are raised about who will apply to take over the assistant of the most vulnerable segments in a country that is regularly ranked below the rank of global corruption.
the human image
The report said the United Nations classified the humanitarian crisis in Iraq in 2017 as “one of the largest volatile crises in the world.”
According to UN statistics, by the time Iraq declared victory over ISIS, there were about 11 million people, in a country of 37 million people (now more than 40 million), in need of some form of humanitarian assistance.
He added that the numbers of the displaced were changing according to flight or return between 2014 and 2017, but in total there were about six million people.
Displacement camps
Starting in 2019, Iraq began to close its camps in an attempt to encourage more people to return, and some of them were also reclassified as “informal camps,” with almost no services, and at present, there is only one official camp for displaced people within the areas of federal Iraq, and 25 in the areas of the Kurdistan Regional Government.
As part of the 2022 humanitarian response plan to deliver aid across Iraq, the UN said some 2.5 million people, including 1.1 million children, remain dependent on some form of humanitarian assistance, with 995,000 people considered “highly at risk,” the report said.
According to the report, this includes hundreds of thousands of internally displaced people who have not been able to return to their areas, and there are also about 258,000 Syrian refugees, most of them in the areas of the Kurdistan Region.
change of the United Nations
The report explained that the United Nations has moved from an approach focused on emergency assistance, to development, which means that its agencies and some of its partners, have stopped managing the camps or will gradually abolish its management of camps and providing services to most (but not all) internally displaced people, while handing over responsibility for this to local authorities.
In addition, there will be no inter-agency humanitarian planning process, with which the UN and the NGOs it works publish an annual assessment of the needs required, and then appeal to the international community to raise funds to do their work.
Last year, the organizations requested $400 million and received $335 million, the report noted.
For comparison, the report continued that during the height of the Iraq crisis, and with the media focusing on the battle to liberate Mosul in 2016, the United Nations appealed to raise $860.5 million, in addition to another $284 million to support those fleeing the ISIS attack, and the organizations received $1.9 billion, a figure that includes funds granted outside the plans of the United Nations.
The report quoted the representative of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in Iraq, Jean-Nicolas Beez, as saying that the Iraqi and Kurdish authorities had enough time to prepare for this transition process, and that they want the Iraqi authorities and the Kurdistan Regional Government to take joint responsibility for humanitarian issues, adding that he had informed those responsible for the transition since before its arrival in Iraq (in November 2021).
In November 2022, Pease said that “through financial means, manpower and knowledge, Iraq has the capacity to respond to the needs of its population.”
Kurdistan Region
But the organization had spoken with the international aid coordinator for the Kurdistan Regional Government Dindar Zebari last November when the transition was in its infancy, and said at the time that the usual budget shortfall of the provincial government meant that it would not be able to fill the funding gap left by the transformation of UN policy, explaining that “a request was made by the authorities to our international counterparts and NGOs to continue their financial support for refugees and displaced persons in the camps.”
“The Kurdistan Regional Government has been left alone in the process of meeting these needs and supporting the displaced and refugees,” he added, noting that “for the transition process to succeed, there is a need for a participatory leadership of the government.”
The report also quoted Awat Mustafa, a representative of the Barzani Charitable Foundation (BCF) independently funded and carrying out work in the region’s camps, as saying his organization did not expect to fill the funding gap.
As for the media office of Prime Minister Mohammed Shiaa Al-Sudani, it said last November that the Iraqi government is working on developing an integrated plan for the camps of internally displaced persons, but did not confirm the funding expected to be shared with the Kurdistan Regional Government.
International aid organizations
It is not entirely clear who will fill the gap in coordination between NGOs and UN agencies, as assistance operations shift away from the UN’s coordinated system, the report noted.
He pointed out that major international NGOs say they continue to work in Iraq through funding that comes directly from donors and not through annual appeals led by the United Nations.
This situation may not apply to local NGOs that often do the bulk of the work on the ground, he added.
Overall, NGOs have expressed a range of multiple concerns, including the pace of the transition, how the Iraqi government is involved in changing leadership, and what this transition means when completed, for particularly vulnerable groups.
Samar Abboud, a director at the international non-governmental rescue committee working in Iraq, was quoted by the report as expressing concern about “the rapid timeline for the humanitarian transition in Iraq, and the way it will affect the most vulnerable Iraqis in the post-conflict phase.”
The report concluded by saying that the United Nations now considers that emergency assistance is not intended to continue forever, and with the continuation of the transition process, and Iraq’s transformation into a less urgent destination for the de decombusive humanitarian aid sector, there are still many questions about whether the federal authorities and in the region, will be able to support the needy, without answers.
Shafaq News / The Federal Supreme Court (the highest judicial authority in Iraq) responded to the request for the state order to stop the disbursement of 400 billion dinars by the Ministry of Finance to the Kurdistan Region submitted by MP Mustafa Sanad.
The court attributed the refusal to issue the state order in this regard for two reasons: the first is the absence of urgency in it, and the second is that deciding on it means entering into the origin of the right and giving a prior opinion in the case.
The Federal Supreme Court decided to reject the request of the request to issue the state order, Mustafa Jabbar Sanad, according to the appended decision signed by the president of the court, Judge Jassim Mohammed Abboud.
For his part, MP Mustafa Jabbar Sanad confirmed in a blog on social networking sites that the Federal Court rejected his claim by requesting an urgent loyalty order (stop disbursement) against the federal government and the TBI Bank about granting a loan of 400 billion dinars from the bank.
He added that the state order was returned, but the lawsuit is still open for decision in the coming months.
At the end of 2022, the federal government agreed to send 400 billion dinars to the region to finance the salaries of employees for the months of November and December 1 of the same year.
The Ministry of Finance and Economy of the Kurdistan Regional Government announced that it received the amount on March 13.
Baghdad – Mawazine News The new Deputy Governor of the Central Bank, Faisal Al-Haims, began his duties on Wednesday.
“The new Deputy Governor of the Central Bank, Faisal Al-Haims, began his duties in the position today,” the Central Bank said in a statement received by Mawazine News.
Al-Hims expressed “his full support for teamwork and the plans set by the Governor of the Central Bank, with the aim of upgrading and advancing the reality of the bank.”
He stressed, “Seek to assume the responsibility entrusted to him, and to be up to this task,” noting that “the Central Bank is one of the most important state institutions, as it plays an important role in serving society.” It’s over 29/N33
The Association of Iraqi Private Banks held the closing ceremony of the program “Activating lending programs in Iraq” supported by the US Agency for Development (USAID) within the project of constantly adapting societies and supporting economic opportunities “Tahiz”, which lasted for 6 months.
The program focused on launching a policy paper that includes an action map to increase access to finance, training a group of employees of credit departments in banks and preparing 7 trainers in the field of credit and credit analysis, in addition to making recommendations to the central bank and the government in order to make decisions that facilitate the lending process.
“The Central Bank is working to establish a loan guarantee company to provide high flexibility to the banking sector for lending,” said the Governor of the Central Bank, Ali Al-Alaq, noting that “the Central Bank has lent through its initiatives about 13 trillion dinars.”
He added that “the banking sector is responsible for lending and the central bank should not be relied on in the lending process, explaining that “the central bank is working on a national strategy to build lending bases that are common between the banking sector, the central bank and the government.”
For his part, the President of the Association of Private Banks, Wadih Al-Hanalal, said in his speech on his behalf, advisor to the Association Samir Al-Nusairy, that “the program is very important to speed up the lending process in Iraq,” adding that “the banking sector has a major role in accelerating growth in the economic sectors, which reflects positively on the gross domestic product.”
The Executive Director of the Association of Banks, Ali Tariq, made “an offer that included the objectives of the project, the method of its implementation, and the volume of lending in the banking sector, which reached more than 60 trillion dinars at the end of 2022.”
The conference concluded with a discussion session moderated by the advisor in the Association, Samir Al-Nusairy, and included a representative of the Operations Department at the Central Bank, Hussein Atwan, the head of the credit committee in the association, Alaa Faik, the director of the company for banking guarantees, Hussein Thamer, and the representative of the Iraqi Company for Financing Small and Medium Enterprises, Ahmed Sabah.
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