ERBIL, Kurdistan Region — The Kurdistan Region’s allocation of almost 14 trillion Iraqi dinars in the draft federal budget for 2021 will shrink as a result of the finance committee squeezing the overall budget for the country, a member of Iraqi Parliament’s finance committee told Rudaw on Sunday. The budget amount for the Kurdistan Region, which had previously been allocated by the Iraqi government to more than 13 trillion and 900 billion dinars, will be reduced, Ahmad Saffar told Rudaw’s Aso Fishagi on Sunday, just a day after the announcement of a general slashing of unnecessary expenditures from the bill to tackle the country's hefty deficit. “12.67% of the federal budget will be spent in 2021,” but the amount of the budget share has not yet been determined in dinars, Saffar added. Sherwan Mirza, a member of the Iraqi parliament who sits on the finance committee, confirmed to Rudaw English on Saturday that they had reduced total expenditures from 164 trillion dinars to less than 130 trillion in the bill. The parliament’s amendments to the budget have more than halved the projected deficit, he added. The budget bill submitted by the cabinet to parliament included a 71 trillion dinar deficit, which Saffar said was reduced to 29 trillion dinars after the general cuts to the bill. The KRG’s share of the draft budget is the same as it was the previous year. In the 2019 budget law, the Kurdistan Region’s share was 12.67 percent. Baghdad applied the same law for 2020, after a failure by Iraqi political parties to agree on a new budget bill. Kurdish members of Iraq’s parliament have suggested they would attempt to amend the draft 2021 federal budget to secure 14% for the Kurdistan Region, claiming that the full size of its population is not reflected in the 12.67% currently assigned to it. The Kurdistan Region delegation led by Qubad Talabani, the Deputy Prime Minister of the Kurdistan Region will go back to Baghdad on Sunday for further negotiations with the Iraqi government. The 2021 Iraqi budget bill was approved by Iraq’s Council of Ministers on December 21. Iraqi parliament has held two readings of the bill, and is expected to be submitted to parliament to vote within eight days, Saffar told state media outlet Iraqi News Agency (INA). The budget has been a point of contention between Erbil and Baghdad for several years, especially after the Kurdistan Region's decision to sell its oil through Turkey, and the Islamic State (ISIS) attack on Iraq in 2014. Both governments are struggling financially. The KRG has been failing to pay its civil servants on time and in full, while the Iraqi government had to take out loans from its central bank to pay the salaries of its civil servants for the last three months of 2020.
