Possible return to the premiership ignites a media war between the coalition of Abadi and Badr bloc

BAGHDAD – A coalition of victory, led by former Prime Minister Haider Abadi, on Monday, the comments made by the head of the Badr parliamentary bloc, and announced the refusal to return Abadi prime minister after a statement to the latter confirmed that he would not object to that in If the government of Adel Abdul Mahdi did not succeed in completing its constitutional term.

The leader of the coalition MP Nada Shaker Jawdat, “The return of Abadi to prime minister, is not the hands of the parties, because such a thing must be a word for the people, and the people know the great achievements achieved by Abadi during the leadership of Iraq, in the previous stage.”

“These achievements support Abadi to get the prime minister a second time,” she said. “Talking about Abadi’s return to the premiership is not a dream, as some are promoting, but this is very likely, and is absolutely unlikely.”

The head of the Badr parliamentary bloc, Hassan Shaker al-Kaabi, earlier on Monday, the statements of the head of the coalition of victory, former Prime Minister, Haider Abadi, in which he said that the government of Adel Abdul-Mahdi may not continue and ends its work before completing the four years being formed through alliances fragile .

Al-Kaabi said that “the current government has not formed as a result of alliances, but strong consensus and the alliance is something and consensus is a second thing, formed by a consensus between the conquest and the rest, and the government is strong and going on its way and lead internally well and externally continue to open to Arab and foreign countries in the interest of Iraq.”

He stressed that “the current government is not fragile and every new government faltering at the beginning of its work, and then correct the tracks, especially that it was necessary to replace ministers are not at the required level.”

He pointed out that “the talk of Abadi not to object to the presidency of the government in the event that the government of Abdul Mahdi on the way rejected, because his previous government did not provide anything to Iraq did not manage the financial crisis properly.”

He stressed that “Badr will not agree to take Abadi prime minister again, and this is just a dream of Abadi, and will not allow his return because he did not offer anything to the Iraqi people.”

Abadi stressed on Sunday that the current government is worse than the quota governments, saying it is the result of a coalition of “anxious and fragile,” while he expressed his readiness to consider assuming the presidency of the government in the absence of the government of Adel Abdul Mahdi continue.

Abadi said in an interview with the agency “Sputnik” Russian, “The current government is worse than the governments of quotas, the quotas benefit the entitlement of each block to form a government, which happened is to hold government quotas in isolation from the rest of the blocks.”

“We wanted to form an independent government with national professional competencies, but this did not happen, and I do not expect a streamlined government action based on this principle.”

Abadi added that “the current government produced by an alliance does not adopt the constitutional principle of the largest bloc, the result of a coalition of concern and fragile, and government performance is still below the required level,” noting: “We supported the government and supported the formation, although we did not share it.”

He continued: “Victory authorized the prime minister to choose competent ministers competent, but it happened that the share of victory that we gave up went to others,” pointing out that “refused to take over the post of Foreign Minister and all the positions offered to him.”

“The (coalition) of victory, which I work for and through him, is a project to reform the state.”

Abadi refused to download the adviser to the Iraqi Prime Minister for National Security Affairs Faleh Fayyad responsibility for the lack of a ministerial cabin, saying: “I do not imagine that the reason is centered around Faleh Fayadh, there are a number of reasons: the difference of government coalition on the proportions and size and weight of quotas among them, Some parties to keep the equation of governance is concerned and unstable for reasons of their own, and there is external interference and its effects on the form and direction of the government.

He stressed that “his assumption of the premiership in the absence of the continuation of the government of Abdul Mahdi is decided at the time,” noting that “has a successful experience of leading the country and save them from terrorism and division and isolation and collapse, and that he will not abandon his national responsibilities in any location was.” )

Iraqpressagency.com

Four billion dinars of counterfeit currency enter monetary transactions in Iraq

Baghdad – Dr. Hamid Abdullah: Iraqi banking parties accuse parties, mafia and armed groups of entering large amounts of counterfeit Iraqi currency into daily trading in local markets!

While Iraqi politicians admitted that they were drowning the Iraqi market in counterfeit currency in the time of the former regime, a senior official in the Central Bank of Iraq said that 200 million dinars are discovered monthly by government and private banking agencies.

The Director of the Department of Issuance and Treasury in the Central Bank Jafar Ghulam that 4 billion dinars of counterfeit currency entered daily transactions and that 200 million of them are discovered monthly through citizens who are usually victims of this forgery.

Politicians opposed to Saddam Hussein’s regime acknowledged that, with the help of the Iranian government, they were paying a large block of cash from the counterfeit Iraqi currency to the Iraqi interior, using the printing press at local Iraqi presses following the economic embargo imposed on Iraq in the 1990s.

According to the banking source, it appears that parties and armed groups find in the window of counterfeit currency a door to achieve illegal profits and may find these groups of easy to deal with counterfeit currency within banking companies or even within government banks or through auctions sale of currency in the Central Bank of Iraq .

Data from the Central Bank of Iraq that there are approximately 40 to 45 trillion Iraqi dinars printed in foreign presses on the market in Iraq.

The central bank is forced to replace the paper money categories from time to time or reprint them with the addition of new technical specifications and specifications that hinder attempts to falsify them.

The Association of Banking Companies in Iraq that the owners of exchange companies have resorted to the import of machines dedicated to the counting of the Iraqi currency from Germany and China have the privacy of sorting the real currency of counterfeit to protect themselves from the frauds that cause great damage.

Akhbar-alkhaleej.com

Darraji: The Central Bank betray Iraq daily through the auction of corrupt currency

Baghdad – The former MP Rahim Darraji, the current central bank governor Ali al-Alak full responsibility for the effects of the currency auction, pointing out that the central bank has betrayed the country’s great daily by continuing corruption of the currency auction.

Al-Daraji said in a statement to the “news”, that “the current central bank governor on the bear full responsibility for the effects of the currency auction.”

He added that “the central bank and in cooperation with another government bank involved in corruption issues currency auction, and money laundering operations reached billions of dollars through the auction currency and the public prosecutor to move the judiciary and verify suspicions.”

“The parties involved in the case are the Integrity Commission, the Public Prosecution, the Customs Authority and the border crossings, and the government has to ask them questions,” Darraji said.

It is noteworthy that the case of corruption of seven billion dinars, which caused by the relationship and put his name on the currency is still vague in the absence of serious seriousness in the investigation of these two files, as well as the continuing corruption in the currency auction, which was announced by a large number of politicians and observers.

Ikhnews.com

IMF completes Article IV consultations on Iraq

A team from the International Monetary Fund, headed by Gavin Gray , visited the Jordanian capital of Amman from 25 April to 2 May, with the aim of holding discussions with the Iraqi authorities in the context of Article IV consultations , For 2019.

At the end of the visit, according to a statement by the IMF, Gray said the end of the war on a buoyant organization and the resurgence of oil prices offer an opportunity to rebuild Iraq and overcome long-standing socio-economic problems.

“But the challenges to achieving these goals are enormous, the pace of economic recovery is still slow, reconstruction is very limited after the war is over, and the large current spending increases risk, putting public funds and central bank reserves on track Its continuity can not be sustained.

Anti-corruption was very important to enhance the effectiveness of public institutions, to support investment efforts and to create employment by the private sector .

“In the short term, the short-term weakness is reversed in 2018, with a surplus in the budget and a build-up in the central bank’s reserves,” he said.

Non-oil growth is expected to rise to 5.4 percent in 2019 on the back of increased investment spending; however, fiscal deficits are expected to rise in the medium term, requiring funding that could squeeze the private sector or erode the central bank’s reserves.

Under these conditions, capital spending may be difficult to sustain, and growth will likely slow considerably .

” Therefore, policy changes and structural reforms – including improved governance – are essential to sustain medium-term economic sustainability and to lay the foundations for inclusive growth,” he said .

“The fiscal policy should be based on the gradual expansion of public investment, while at the same time building safety margins,” said the head of the mission.

“To find the required space, IFAD staff recommends budget savings of about 9 percent of GDP over the medium term by tightening control over current spending, especially on public sector wages, and taking phased measures to boost revenue Non-oil.

He explained that setting ceilings for current budget spending, starting with the 2020 budget onwards, would enhance the fiscal framework’s ability to support a higher volume of investment and adapt to the shocks in oil prices. Major reforms should include :

The containment of public sector wages; short-term spending pressures could be suppressed through compensatory measures, such as a ceiling on allowances, emoluments and other non-wage payments, combined with the enforcement of natural decline in public sector staffing.

Structural measures in the medium term, based on a functional workforce review and deeper reforms in the civil service system, will be necessary once new human resources and information management systems are put in place .

Gray said reforms in the electricity sector were key to addressing poor service quality and cutting high electricity costs in the budget because of low tariff rates, chronic non-payment of electricity bills and poor maintenance .

On the support of public finance management, strengthening the legal framework, improving compliance and other control systems were key factors aimed at minimizing the misuse of public resources and restoring discipline in the budget .

In the financial sector, a strong plan to restructure large-scale public sector banks and the strengthening of bank controls was necessary to ensure financial stability and would help promote financial development and financial coverage.

The strengthening of AML / CFT controls and the strengthening of supervision would help Iraq prevent the misuse of the Iraqi financial sector for the purpose of harvesting criminal proceeds from money laundering and terrorist financing .

He called on the IMF to address the weakness of governance and vulnerabilities that spread through corruption, which he considered a very important factor in achieving the goals described in the policies.

The Fund called for ensuring the independence and integrity of anti-corruption bodies, and the AML / CFT system should be activated to support anti-corruption efforts .

The IMF team will prepare a report, subject to approval by the Administration, and is tentatively scheduled for consideration by the Executive Board of the Fund in July 2019 .

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IMF Staff Completes 2019 Article IV Mission on Iraq

May 6, 2019

End-of-Mission press releases include statements of IMF staff teams that convey preliminary findings after a visit to a country. The views expressed in this statement are those of the IMF staff and do not necessarily represent the views of the IMF’s Executive Board. Based on the preliminary findings of this mission, staff will prepare a report that, subject to management approval, will be presented to the IMF’s Executive Board for discussion and decision.

Near-term vulnerabilities subsided in 2018, with the budget in surplus and a build-up in central bank reserves. Post-war reconstruction has been limited so far.
Fiscal deficits are projected to rise over the medium term, absent policy changes, and it will be hard to sustain capital spending. Growth is likely to slow markedly.

Tight control over current spending, particularly wages, and phased measures to boost non-oil revenue would make space for scaling up public investment and building fiscal buffers.

An International Monetary Fund (IMF) team led by Gavin Gray visited Amman from April 26 to May 2, to hold discussions with the Iraqi authorities in the context of the 2019 Article IV Consultation. At the end of the visit, Mr. Gray made the following statement:

“The end of the war with ISIS and a rebound in oil prices provide an opportunity to rebuild the country and address long-standing socio-economic needs. However, the challenges to achieving these objectives are formidable. The economic recovery has been sluggish, post-war reconstruction is limited, and large current spending increases risk placing the public finances and central bank reserves on an unsustainable path. Moreover, combatting corruption is critical to promote the effectiveness of public institutions and to support private-sector investment and job creation.

“Near-term vulnerabilities subsided in 2018, with the budget in surplus and a build-up in central bank reserves. Non-oil growth is expected to increase to 5.4 percent in 2019 on the back of higher investment spending. However, fiscal deficits are projected to rise over the medium term, requiring financing that may crowd out the private sector or erode central bank reserves. In these circumstances, it would be hard to sustain capital spending, and growth would slow markedly.

“Policy changes and structural reforms—including to improve governance—are therefore essential to maintain medium-term sustainability and lay the foundations for inclusive growth.

“Fiscal policy should aim to scale up public investment gradually while building fiscal buffers. To make space for this, staff recommends budgetary savings of around 9 percent of GDP over the medium term through tight control of current spending, particularly public-sector wages, and phased measures to boost non-oil revenue. Setting ceilings on current expenditure in the 2020 budget onwards would strengthen the fiscal framework’s capacity to support higher capital spending and to adapt to oil price shocks. Key reforms should include:

Containing public-sector wages. Spending pressures could be dampened in the short run through compensation measures such as capping allowances, bonuses and other non‑base wage payments, and by not fully replacing retirees. Structural measures will be required over the medium term, based on a functional workforce review as well as deeper civil service reform once new HR management and information systems are in place.

Electricity reforms are key to addressing the weak quality of service and reducing the high budgetary costs, due to modest tariff rates, chronic non-payment of electricity bills, poor maintenance and over-reliance on expensive generation sources, coupled with losses throughout the generation, transmission, and distribution process. It would be important to ensure that the poor and most vulnerable are protected throughout this reform.

Bolstering public financial management. Enhancing the legal framework and improving commitment and other control systems are key to minimizing misuse of public resources and restoring budgetary discipline.

“In the financial sector, a robust plan to restructure the large public banks coupled with enhanced supervision is essential to secure financial stability and will help promote financial development and inclusion. Strengthening anti-money laundering and countering financing terrorism (AML/CFT) controls and oversight will help prevent Iraq’s financial sector from being misused for the laundering of criminal proceeds and terrorist financing.

“Addressing governance weaknesses and corruption vulnerabilities is critical to achieving the described policy objectives. As a first step, the authorities need to develop a comprehensive understanding of the corruption risks present in Iraq and then implement policies to tackle these risks in a coherent and coordinated manner. The legislative framework needs to be strengthened to effectively prevent officials from abusing their position or misusing state resources. To this end, laws strengthening the asset declaration regime and criminalizing illicit gains should be rapidly adopted. Furthermore, the independence and integrity of bodies involved in combatting corruption should be ensured and the AML/CFT regime should be mobilized to support anti-corruption efforts.
“The team will prepare a report that, subject to management approval, is tentatively scheduled to be considered by the IMF’s Executive Board in July 2019.

“The IMF team would like to thank the authorities for the candid and constructive discussions during this visit.”

Imf.org

In anticipation of economic sanctions affecting … Russia is looking to use local currencies with Iraq instead of the dollar

Iraq and Russia are seeking to use national currencies in commercial transactions instead of the US dollar.

“The use of national currencies has been discussed and placed on the agenda for future meetings,” the daily Kommiarant said in a report.

“A program launched in Russia since 2018 aims to reduce the dependence of the Russian economy on the dollar, in anticipation of any economic sanctions that may be imposed by the United States, as this will reduce the impact of sanctions on the economic system in them,” the COMESARNET said.

It is noteworthy that an Iraqi-Russian agreement stipulated the establishment of joint cooperation committees, which meet semi-annually, to achieve common economic benefits.

Alghadpress.com

Bank of Baghdad: The Central Bank of Iraq has succeeded in strengthening the pillars of monetary stability

Economy News Baghdad: The Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Bank of Baghdad, Essam Ismail Sharif, that the Central Bank of Iraq has succeeded in strengthening the pillars of monetary stability in spite of the circumstances experienced by Iraq.

“In 2018, the Central Bank of Iraq, through its strategy of managing monetary policy and strengthening the pillars of monetary stability despite the circumstances in which the country was going through, succeeded in overcoming these conditions,” Sharif said in his annual report issued by the Bank of Baghdad. While maintaining the exchange rate of the dinar to the dollar within the parallel market prices. ”

He stressed that “the Central Bank continued to provide short and medium-term credit lines to finance the economic sectors, including small and medium-sized enterprises within the preferential interest rate, and in the liquidity side work to pay part of restricted cash with its branches in Sulaymaniyah and Arbil to Iraqi banks.”

He continued his leadership role in the development of electronic payment methods and the process of settling salaries in Iraq, and on the technical side issued the Central Bank of Iraq instructions for the application of capital adequacy according to the Basel III standard, which began to be applied experimentally on the data of the third quarter and fourth and will be adopted from the year 2019 “.

He pointed out that “the Iraqi economy is expected to achieve growth of 6.5% during the year 2019, in light of improved macroeconomic factors and the deficit of the general budget of the state and the need for the country to reconstruction projects of infrastructure.”

He pointed out that “Bank of Baghdad has been able to grow its financial position and size of customer deposits and to achieve a part of the qualitative and quantitative achievements at the administrative and organizational level and maintain liquidity and improve the quality of assets, which will maintain its position within the Iraqi banking sector,” explaining that “the capital adequacy ratio reached 127% Which exceed the indicators of global requirements and the Central Bank of Iraq.

He pointed out that “to meet the requirements of customers at the bank has re-completed the spread of its distribution channels and develop, whether opening branches at their new sites and start rehabilitation of the branches of Mosul and Tikrit and Anbar to be within the branches operating in 2019 in addition to the expansion of electronic distribution channels in terms of exchange, A cashier and is planned to reach 62 cashiers. ”

Economy-news.net

Alaq is deputy chairman of the Board of Governors of the Arab Monetary Fund

Samir Nusairi – On April 25, the Arab Monetary Fund organized the tenth session of the Arab Finance Ministers’ Council to discuss the support of small and medium enterprises, the requirements of developing social security systems, strengthening public debt management and benefiting from modern technologies to improve tax systems and services and follow up progress in the Arab clearing project. During the session, the Governor of the Central Bank of Iraq, Mr. Ali Mohsen Al-Alak, was elected as Deputy Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Arab Monetary Fund at its current session and as Chairman of the Board for the next session.

The renewal of confidence by the Arab banks that are members of the Fund with the Iraqi economy and the efforts exerted by its national economic institutions, in particular the evaluation of the great role of the Central Bank of Iraq during the past four years on the level of internal construction and development in the applications of monetary policy and the level of building strong international financial and banking relations with The Arab countries and foreign countries, where the institutions of the achievement of clear achievements during the economic and security shocks experienced by Iraq after the middle of 2014 and contributed to the economic steadfastness, which helped our armed forces to achieve the text On the expeditious terrorism.

Therefore, through the review, analysis and evaluation impartially and transparently of the Iraqi economic situation and in particular is being investigated by the ministries and economic institutions in Iraq from a competent point of view has been reached facts and evidence and signs and achievements confirm that the Central Bank of Iraq proved to be the first economic institution through its important achievements in supporting the economy And achieve economic steadfastness and strive to achieve economic stability in accordance with its strategy and this is achieved by the work and reality and the team of the Central Bank of Iraq National Excellence. As he contributed to the victory of victory over terrorism accompanied by another victory is the steadfastness and economic victory, which was the team of the Central Bank of Iraq and its governor a key role and leading in achieving.

And the economic victory achieved results, most notably the most important support the state treasury and stabilize the exchange rate and recovery of the Iraqi dinar and reduce inflation and maintain the rate of less than (2%) and maintain a cash reserve sufficient by 160% as cumulative accumulator according to the latest standard of the IMF with a reserve of gold within The adoption of standards and controls in line with the requirements of international standards in compliance and combating money laundering and terrorism financing and the basic objectives and subsections of its strategy and the activation and consolidation of new visions of monetary policy applications and the important thing achieved is stability Exchange rate and reduce the gap between the official price of the US dollar and the parallel price, a key objective of monetary policy.

And the implementation of policies to restore confidence in the banking transactions of Iraqi banks with Arab and foreign banks and the quest to build a solid banking sector and the continuation of extraordinary efforts to improve the banking reputation of institutions and international financial organizations and correspondent banks.

The establishment of strong relations with the Arab and foreign central banks and the international financial organizations. Also, procedural, regulatory, structural and internal development policies have been drawn up , which aim at achieving financial stability and developing the banking business technically, structurally and organizationally and raising the financial coverage to the target ratio. And the mechanisms of banking which formed a solid base on the domestic and external scale. It was all these achievements that called on the governors of the Arab banks to elect the relations of Na’aba and the President of their Council in the next session, which is an embodiment that Iraq’s economy is recovering and recovering from its crises and that is a tribute to the Iraqi people and its economic, financial and banking institutions.

Economy-news.net

Economist: the signing of the relationship on the currency “no clear and no light”

Baghdad – The economic expert, Amer Jawahery, Saturday, that the signature of the Governor of the Central Bank Ali al-Alaq on the Iraqi currency, a precedent did not occur in a country in the world, demanding integrity disclosure of investigations on the damage of 7 billion dinars due to leakage of rainwater to the treasury of Rafidain government.
“The signing of the relations on the Iraqi currency in the past year, a precedent (no sira and no light), did not occur in any country in the world,” he said, adding that “all countries adopt the signature of the title without naming the names.”

Regarding the incident of the sinking of the seven billion dollars, Al-Jawahiri called on the parliament to “uncover the course of investigations regarding the sinking of billions.” He pointed out that the parliament has not issued any comment on this matter so far.

Ikhnews.com

US Central Command: Our combat presence in Iraq will be long-term

Information / Baghdad …The commander of the US Central Command, General Kenneth McKenzie, said Saturday that his country’s combat forces will be in the territory of Iraq long-term, between the US forces will withdraw from Syria gradually.