Budget breakdown: Iraq lawmakers warn of 2025 void

Shafaq News/ Iraq’s federal budget remains in limbo as lawmakers blame political gridlock and waning government resolve for the delay in submitting the updated financial tables to parliament, raising fears that no federal budget will be passed for 2025.

“The 2023 Budget Law required the cabinet to forward the updated tables to the House of Representatives for approval,” Uday Awad, a member of the parliamentary finance committee, told Shafaq News.

Awad attributed the prolonged delay to “the political climate, looming elections, and the absence of a genuine political will to finalize the budget,” asserting that these factors had stalled the process.

He cautioned that there might not be a budget for 2025, given the government’s “lack of serious intent to send the draft to parliament.”

On April 16, the Prime Minister’s economic advisor, Mudhhir Mohammed Saleh, pointed to technical complications as a key obstacle. “Adjustments related to the costs of extracting and transporting oil from the Kurdistan Region necessitated a recalculation of budgetary allocations,” he explained to Shafaq News.