PFC sets conditions for voting on the borrowing law

Baghdad - INA - Muhammad al-Talbi

The Parliamentary Finance Committee has set a condition for voting on the borrowing law, revealing the amount of money in the 2020 budget, confirming that the delay in employee salaries is a dangerous precedent that affected 15 million Iraqis.

Committee member Jamal Cougar said in a statement to the Iraqi News Agency (INA), today, Thursday: "The parliamentary committee has studied the borrowing law in addition to intensive studies that will be conducted during the next week."

He added, "The law contains large sums in numbers, as the government's 8-month budget ranges from 51-53 trillion dinars, and it is not in fact that the budget for a period of 4 months is greater than what was spent in 8 months."

He stressed that "the Finance Committee is not ready to proceed with voting with these numbers, and we will vote on the law after changing them and setting actual real numbers to fill the deficit."

He pointed out that "the Minister of Finance, Ali Allawi, linked the payment of salaries and the legislation of the borrowing law, because the ministry was unable to provide it and fill the deficit."

He explained that "delaying employees' salaries is a precedent that occurs for the first time and we have not seen it even in the darkest circumstances," noting that "the delay in salaries did not only affect the employee segment, but also affected all working segments in the Iraqi state and the private sector, and thus about 15 million people were affected by it."