The “dollar” will make the 2021 budget difficult
Baghdad: The calls for restoring the exchange rate of the dollar against the Iraqi dinar have risen above the platform for parliamentary disagreements regarding the draft federal budget law for 2021, and the issue of revenues and the share of the Kurdistan region is no longer far from the problem of not voting.
Yesterday, Saturday, Parliament tried to get out of the “budget” crisis by holding a meeting to finalize the bill, between its Finance Committee and the Ministers of Finance, Oil, Planning, Electricity, Trade, Construction, Housing, Municipalities, Works, Labor and Social Affairs, and the Chairman of the Federal Service Council. The meeting was chaired by the second deputy speaker of Parliament, Bashir Al-Haddad, who held a press conference, after the meeting, in which he clarified what had been discussed, stressing that “the exchange rate of the dollar, its repercussions and the resulting consequences and problems and a rise in prices, in addition to solutions and ways to address these were discussed. the case”.
Al-Haddad noted that a meeting will be held with the governor of the Central Bank, and a joint committee will be formed from the government and parliament to discuss how to maintain the price without affecting market conditions and that the exchange rate is not within the budget.
He added that “the Presidency of the Council of Representatives will hold a meeting with the parliamentary blocs before the session takes place to reach an agreement to pass the budget,” expressing his “hope that the vote will be made on the bill that was included on the agenda of the Council session scheduled for Sunday.
Al-Haddad revealed that the Kurdistan Regional Government delegation agreed to the text that was agreed upon with the political blocs regarding the region’s share, indicating that “the Finance Committee in Parliament ratified this agreement and it became a fixed item in the budget.” In the meantime, the parliamentary state of law bloc joined the political blocs that objected to the exchange rate of the dollar against the Iraqi dinar and demanded that it be returned to the old price, in agreement with the Al-Fateh parliamentary bloc, which led a movement to collect parliamentary signatures on compelling the government to reduce the exchange rate.