Authorities, however, attribute the reason to financial, technical, or political factors, vowing to finish them in the near future.
"The government is seriously engaged in dealing with these projects and resuming work on them as soon as possible," Abdul Zahra Al-Hindawi - spokesman for the Iraqi Ministry of Planning told Rudaw.
Hindawi added that "The number of unfinished projects has recently been reduced from 1, 452 projects to 1, 063 projects. This is due to the fact that there are continuous efforts and work to finish all the unfinished projects."
The national budget is the main source of funding in Iraq. The government annually allocates part of the budget for the purpose of investment, usually ranging from a quarter to a third of the budget.
As for the capital, Baghdad, there are dozens of unfinished projects in the health, educational, and service sectors, as well as road and bridge projects.
The relevant authorities are trying to complete their projects now that the budget has been turned into law.
"There is strong will and follow-up from all the relevant ministries to finish all the unfinished projects. Indeed, we had more than 55 unfinished schools that were finished recently. They are now up and running," Muhammad Jaber Al-Atta - the governor of Baghdad said.
The new budget allocated about 47 trillion dinars for investment projects, while the Ministry of Planning says that lagging projects need more than 16 trillion dinars to complete them.
The number of companies lagging behind in the service sectors has reached 100, according to statistics from the Ministry of Construction, Housing, and Public Municipalities at the beginning of this year.
The Iraqi parliament passed all articles of the three-year federal budget last Monday session after four days of trial-and-error and political wrangling between the country’s different actors.
