Roj Bash Kurdistan

Technical" trickery used by Baghdad to divvy up the Regions' share of the 2011 budget.
Although Iraq's 2012 budget is much higher than that of last year, this increase did not increase Kurdistan Region's budget proportionately.

Out of Iraq's 2012 budget, which is 117 trillion Iraqi dinars (approximately 100 billion USD), KRG will only receive12.6 trillion IQD, which amounts to some 10.7% of the total budget. This is while constitutionally Kurdistan Region should receive 17% of Iraq's budget every year.

This is what ONE trillion dollar look like


If all 17% were given to Kurdistan, its budget would have been 19.9 trillion IQD. This means that 7.3 trillion of the Region's budget has been reduced.

Ahmed Chawsheen, member of Iraqi Parliament and Deputy Chair of the Finance Committee, stated in an interview with "The Kurdish Globe" that Baghdad used a technical trick to reduce Kurdistan's budget."This year Baghdad has increased the sovereign budgets extraordinarily to push Kurdistan Region's share down as much as possible," explained MP Chawsheen.

According to the Constitution, the budget specified for the presidential offices, i.e., the sovereign budget, should be allocated before calculating regional and provincial budget shares.

MP Chawsheen, who is an economic expert, argues that the sovereign budget has been intentionally increase that much, "otherwise a large part of the budget allocated for this purpose could be allocated through budgets of ministries or other government institutions.

For 2012, Baghdad has allocated some 40 trillion Iraqi dinars for such sovereign purposes. Out of this, 7 trillion has been allocated to the National Defense System, while not one penny has been allocated for Kurdistan Region's Peshmarga Force, which is constitutionally part of the National Defense System.

KRG Peshmarga Ministry Spokesperson JabbarYawar states that they did not receive any budget from Baghdad, not even last year.

Though Iraqi authorities, namely the Prime Minister and Minister of Finance, claim that Kurdistan Region receives 17% of the country's annual budget, according to Chawsheen, since 2004 Kurdistan's budget has been between 10 to 12% of the national budget.

Chawsheen told the "Globe" that--according to a paragraph in Article 14 of the draft budget, the National and Regional Financial Audit bureaus calculate the federal revenues collected in Kurdistan and ask the Regional Ministry of Finance to send them back to Baghdad on a monthly basis.

The revenues this paragraph address include revenues of the border points and government charges, which are described in the paragraph as federal budget that should go into the national reserve.

Though Baghdad is trying to calculate and monitor Kurdistan Region revenues in detail, it has failed to calculate its share in the budget with the same level of detail and accuracy.

In Article 2 of the draft, 34 billion Iraqi dinars of Kurdistan's budget are miscalculated. The article is about paying 1 USD per each barrel of oil exported. In this article, Kurdistan's petro dollar budget is estimated to be 41.35 billion, while as per an agreement between Erbil and Baghdad, Kurdistan will be producing and exporting 175,000 barrels of oil per day.

According to MP Chawsheen, if KRG exports 175,000 barrels of oil per day, its petro dollar share would reach 75.18 billion Iraqi dinars.

The Deputy Chair of Iraqi Parliament's Finance Committee added that in last year's budget draft, 44 billion IQD was deducted from Provincial Development budget."After I found that out and raised the issue, they added 8 billion to the budget, but they have not yet paid the remaining 36 billion IQD.

MP Chawsheen sees this as vast discrimination against the region and its people, and urges Kurdish authorities to put all their efforts together to win their rights back.

Kurdish Finance Minister: Baghdad Shortchanges Us

ERBIL, Iraqi Kurdistan -- In an interview with Rudaw, Bayz Talabani, Kurdistan Region’s Minister of Finance, discusses disputes between Baghdad and Erbil over the budget for the region and Kurdish Peshmarga forces, unaccounted-for funds and his future in government.

Rudaw: It’s time for your ministry to send the annual budget outline to the Kurdistan Parliament. What have you done in this regard?

Bayz Talabani: Every year in October, preparation for the budget begins. However, it is impossible to do this without knowing the final budget for the Kurdistan Region from the central government in Baghdad. Before October, we asked all the government ministries to send their budget for the year so that we can discuss it at the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Planning. There is also a supplementary budget but we only discuss the budget that we receive from the central government.

We prepared the draft budget for all the government ministries, the Council of Ministers, Parliament, the (Kurdistan Region) President’s office and other departments. We are now at the final stage of preparing and sending the budget to the government. Once the government has approved it, it will be sent to Parliament.

We now have faced another problem which has caused budget delays. In the past Kurdistan Region’s budget was 14 trillion Iraqi Dinars from the total budget of Iraq, but now it has been reduced to 12 trillion. This amount has not yet been submitted to the Iraqi Parliament for approval. That’s why we decided not to send the budget to the Kurdistan Council of Ministers for approval yet. The problem is not only a few million. It is more than that.


“The Iraq’s Ministry of Defense is supposed to provide the salary of the Peshmarga forces, but they don’t provide it and that leads to a shortage in Kurdistan total budget every year.”

Rudaw: According to some of your earlier statements, in 2012 the Kurdistan Region will receive only 11 percent of its budget instead of the usual 17 percent Baghdad. Is this true?

Bayz Talabani: I would like to explain how the process of Kurdistan Region’s budget from Baghdad works. First, the central government secures the presidential and cabinet budget as well as the defense ministry’s budgets from the total revenue of the country, and only then the Kurdistan Region receives 17 percent of the remainder. For example, let’s say Iraq’s total budget is 120 trillion Iraqi Dinar and 46 trillion goes to defense and presidential offices. Kurdistan Region receives its 17 percent from the remaining budget (74 trillion) which means the Kurdistan Region’s budget would be 12 percent. The Iraqi government has not yet resolved the budget for (Kurdish) Peshmarga forces.

The Iraq’s Ministry of Defense is supposed to provide the salary of the Peshmarga forces, but they don’t provide it and that leads to a shortage in Kurdistan total budget every year. We deserve to receive a lot more from Iraq’s total budget but they aren’t complying. We haven’t received Peshmarga salary from the central government for seven years.

Rudaw: Do you think Kurdish officials and ministers in Baghdad have done a good job, especially in discussing the budget to ensure Kurdistan receives its fair share?

Bayz Talabani: They all tried in both government and Parliament. You can only try and demand. The rest depends on whether they respond to the demands or not.

Rudaw: How much will the budget shortage be in 2012?

Bayz Talabani: The main reason for the budget shortage is because of the Ministry of Peshmarga. As I said, Iraq’s Ministry of Defense doesn’t provide funds for the Peshmarga from its budget. So we have to provide it from our own budget. We don’t know for sure yet how much the shortage will be.

Rudaw: How many offices in the Kurdistan Region receive money from the presidential budget?

Bayz Talabani : The residency and passport offices have been receiving money from the presidential budget for the last two years, but the money is not enough to cover their expenses. The central government doesn’t send what the passport and residency office needs to sustain itself. For example, when the local forces’ salaries were raised, the central government sent only 30 billion, so the Kurdistan Region had to add another 20 billion to cover the pay raises. The same is seen with the teachers’ overtime work. Baghdad sent only 14 billion, but we had to add another 10 billion. The money sent by the central government is a loan and we have to reimburse them by the end of the year.

“Every year, most of Kurdistan’s budget goes to salaries.”

Rudaw: Every month, an amount of money is taken from the paycheck of government employees for their pensions. Is there a monetary fund to save this money or do they receive their pension from the general budget?

Bayz Talabani: Every month, 7 percent of government employees’ salaries is taken away and the government adds 12 percent to it. That money needs to go in a monetary fund. Kurdistan Region doesn’t have this, but Iraq used to have a monetary fund. The government expends retirement salaries from the Ministry of Finance’s budget.

Rudaw: Don’t you think the lack of this monetary fund in Kurdistan hurts the general budget?

Bayz Talabani: No, it doesn’t have any impact on the budget.

Rudaw: It is said that there are too many government employees in Kurdistan. How many of them are there?

Bayz Talabani: There are nearly 600,000 government employees in Kurdistan. Having that number of people to pay salaries to has caused the price of goods in the markets to go up. Every year, most of Kurdistan’s budget goes to salaries. The total number of people who receive salaries is 1.5 million.

Rudaw; People complain that their salary is too low compared with the cost of living. Is that why they are asking for raises?

Bayz Talabani: I believe that prices need to be monitored instead of raising salaries. The more the salaries rise, the more the market prices go up.

Rudaw: Some budget experts believe the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) does not have a spending plan.

Bayz Talabani: The government has plans, but the current situation in Kurdistan is unique and it takes time to resolve everything. It’s true that a huge number of employees cause market prices to rise, but people pressure the government to employ them. Look at the neighbors of Kurdistan; no country cares for the disabled the way Kurdistan does. I don’t think it’s a good idea to give a salary to whoever asks for it.

Rudaw: There is a lot of debate about local revenues. Is it really only 400 million Iraqi Dinar annually, which has been mentioned in the Kurdistan budget?

“Look at the neighbors of Kurdistan; no country cares for the disabled the way Kurdistan does.”

Bayz Talabani: The budget is supplementary, that’s why the revenue comes from the supplementary account and that account has already been submitted to Parliament. For example, the supplementary account of 2010 is currently under examination. When the finance department examines and follows up on the supplementary accounts no one can say those numbers are incorrect. Neither I, as the Minister of Finance, nor any official from the Finance Ministry, can change the numbers, especially since the central government’s Finance Ministry is supervising local revenue. We don’t have secret local revenue. They’re all on the record.

Rudaw: From the supplementary account of 2010, which is currently in Parliament for approval, more than 1 trillion Iraqi Dinar is missing. Where is this money?

Bayz Talabani: The money has not been stolen.

Rudaw: What happened to then?

Bayz Talabani: In 2009, when Parliament approved the budget my ministry had a 1 trillion Iraqi Dinar shortage from the Peshmarga budget, so we used local revenue to fix it.

Rudaw: According to the budget law, the budget revenue shouldn’t be transferred to a spending budget?

Bayz Talabani: That’s not transferring a budget. If the investment remains in the account until the last day of December, then the money returns to the Ministry of Finance. The money has not been stolen. How can you fill that shortage without this money? I expect more shortage this year because Parliament decided to save that money in an account which was not spent before December 31st and that hasn’t happened yet.

Rudaw: A MP from the Kurdistani bloc says the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) “is preventing the 2012 budget from being submitted to Parliament.” Is this true?

Bayz Talabani: I can say on behalf of my ministry that the KDP didn’t do any such thing and no one has told us this. I expect this year, the budget will be sent to Parliament sooner.

“I can say for sure that I have not signed any document to authorize spending money for KDP and PUK media.”

Rudaw: After Parliament suspended government funding for the media, it’s been said that some KDP and Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) media outlets still receive government funding.

Bayz Talabani: I can say for sure that I have not signed any document to authorize spending money for KDP and PUK media.

Rudaw: There are rumors that you have decided to resign in the next cabinet.

Bayz Talabani: I have been a Minister of Finance for almost 10 years. There needs to be a change and for other people to replace us, but if the next cabinet needs me I am willing to serve

The sooner we seperate, the better for all of us.

Am I getting this right. These filthy scum of Maliki just like his father (Saddam Hussein) is stealing from Kurdistan since 7 years almost 6% of its budget to pay his army, which doesnt serve in Kurdistan? Literally he is paying our money to his Army and we still stay as part of sh.thole Iraq?