ERBIL — The Iraqi parliament on Thursday passed the Budget Deficit Law which was already rejected by Kurds for a section in it that meant to harm the Kurdistan Region financially.
Kurdish, Shia and Sunni MPs had to negotiate the bill outside the assembly to find a common ground and enter the session today, based on which the Kurds also agreed to take part.
However, the Kurdish lawmakers boycotted the session later and left after the Shia and Sunni Arabs included Article 5 (2) from the bill in the voting session, which was previously promised to be crossed out.
The article cuts the current 320 billion Iraqi Dinar that the federal government of Iraq sends to Erbil and Kurdistan Region’s partial share from the federal budget. In return, Erbil is obliged to handover 250,000 barrels per day to Baghdad.
This 320 billion IQD (approximately $270 million) is used by the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) to pay public servants’ payments after it also adds internal revenues to run the government and pay salaries.
In today’s deficit budget law, Shia and Sunni Arab MPs amended the mechanism of budget sharing. Based on the amendment, the KRG should submit all its oil and non-oil revenues to the federal government in order to receive only this partial share from the budget, which already does not meet Erbil’s need to run the government.