Al Nahj bloc rejects foreign loans item in 2021 budget

INA – Baghdad
Al Nahj Parliamentary National Bloc rejected foreign loans in the budget.
“The bloc rejects the new foreign loans item included in the 2021 budget bill amounting to more than (8.5) billion dollars," said the head of Al Nahj Parliamentary National Bloc, Ammar Toma, in a press conference held in the Parliament and attended by the Iraqi News Agency (INA).
“The bloc called on the parliament not to ratify on it,”
Toma warned "of the foreign borrowing policy and its burdensome sovereign and economic effects," noting that "many of the proposed projects within these loans do not represent a priority in the government investment approach,"
He explained that "allocations of local investment projects amount to (24) trillion dinars, which are sufficient amounts to cover development and productive investment projects if there is an efficient and sound vision, planning and management," indicating that "what has been allocated in the 2021 budget to repay the debt in installments and benefits exceeds (9) trillion dinars, which form 10% of the estimated total operational expenditures,”
“The continuation of external borrowing will annually double the amounts paid to pay the installments and interest in a cumulative and unjustified manner," he added, “The bloc refuses to authorize the Minister of Finance to issue sovereign payment guarantees to investors in electric energy in the budget law for the same harmful reasons and consequences mentioned and calls on Parliament to cancel them,"