Warnings are growing that Iraq will face financial problems within the coming period for a number of reasons, consisting of its reliance on oil as the only source of the financial finances, which threatens the state’s capability to pay salaries.
December 2024 witnessed a put off in the disbursement of salaries to employees and retirees, whilst the Ministry of Finance denied the lifestyles of a scarcity in liquidity and showed that the purpose changed into due to engaging in final debts.
Political forces and professionals warned of the risk of political interference in figuring out spending items, especially in mild of the challenges going through Iraq from the financial and security components after the terrorist organizations took manipulate of Syria.
in this regard, Salam Al-Zubaidi, a frontrunner within the Coordination Framework forces, confirmed these days, Thursday, that the vital financial institution and the Ministry of Finance may additionally face excellent problems because of political blocs and additives enforcing sure spending doorways at the authorities.
Al-Zubaidi said in an interview with dinaropinions.com, “The monetary coverage in Iraq isn’t clean and the economic situation is uncovered to many pitfalls due to Iraq’s dependence on oil as the only source of the finances, at a price of 90 percentage,” indicating that “among the spending gadgets in the monetary budget were imposed on the government and there is no balance among revenues and earning.”
He brought, “The present day direction of the Iraqi kingdom’s financial plan isn’t clean, and the spending doors that may be imposed by means of political blocs and additives might also embarrass the important bank and the Ministry of Finance in phrases of sales,” indicating that “stopping oil exports from the Kurdistan location and not delivering imports has substantially affected the quantity of imports and the authorities’s economic capability.”
He stresses the “necessity of redrawing the monetary policy of the Iraqi nation by way of the Ministries of Finance and making plans and recalculating a number of the sources of the Iraqi nation, not counting on oil and having other resources and a balance among imports and prices.”
In contrast, the economic and financial consultant to the prime Minister, Mazhar Muhammad Salih, denies the existence of a income disaster in the us of a, stressing the lifestyles of massive economic reserves that cover the required liquidity.
Mazhar Muhammad Salih said in an interview followed by using dinaropinions.com, “There were speculations recently about oil fees, a liquidity crisis, and so on,” noting that “on the cease of the fiscal year, a monetary audit technique takes region, and accordingly there can be a slight postpone in issuing salaries for some days, in keeping with accounting reconciliations.”
The prime Minister’s marketing consultant factors out that “there may be no salary disaster, and what is happening here and there on this regard is not anything extra than fable.”
regarding the dimensions of the financial mass out of doors the important financial institution, Mazhar Muhammad Salih explains that it’s miles “round a hundred-a hundred and five trillion dinars,” noting that “the size of the financial mass inside the banking machine is much less.”
He pressured: “we’ve large forex reserves that absolutely cover this liquidity, which is predicted at approximately $one zero five billion.”
The month-to-month salaries of personnel had been not on time within the final month of 2024, at the same time as the Ministry of Finance commonly will pay the wages of self-financing organizations beginning from the middle of each month, in addition to to the participants of the ministry and banks, at the same time as the salaries of other ministries are released beginning from the twenty third of every month.
