The Iraqi Council of Ministers headed by Prime Minister Mustafa Al-Kazemi approved the federal general budget for the fiscal year 2021, with a value of 150 trillion Iraqi dinars (103 billion dollars), while the budget deficit is expected to reach 63 trillion dinars (43 billion dollars), the draft budget is based on a global oil price of $ 42 a barrel.
It is expected that the draft budget will face major objections inside the parliament, especially after major political forces announced a clear position refusing to pass it, where the State of Law coalition led by Nuri al-Maliki announced his refusal to pass it in Parliament, as the coalition confirmed that the government had gone to the simplest and easiest solutions in the reform process, which is raising the price of the dollar and deducting employees' salaries in the next year’s budget. Announcing his absolute rejection of passing the budget if it includes targeting employees and deducting their salaries in this arbitrary way, given that most employees have very low salaries and do not exceed 500 thousand dinars per month, if any amount is deducted from it, the simple employee is exposed to an economic disaster. Therefore, the government must review its decisions regarding salaries deduction.
According to the coalition, the salaries of employees are a red line, and members of Parliament will not accept a single dinar deduction from them for any reason.
Source (Al-Araby Al-Jadeed Newspaper, Edited)
