SULAIMANI – (ESTA) A member of the Finance Committee of the Iraqi House of Representatives says، “the Iraqi federal budget bill has faced three strong earthquakes that will have a major impact on the state’s cash and obligations.”.
Three strong earthquakes have affected the state budget, two of which are related to the Kurdistan Region, said Mustafa Jabar Sanad, a member of the Finance Committee of the Iraqi House of Representatives.
Sanad says، “The first one is the fall in oil prices، which in the budget set the price at 80 dollar per barrel، assuming there is a price hike (70 + 10) for ease of counting، every dollar that falls below the set price becomes، it caused a loss of 100 million dollar a month to the Iraqi budget.”.
“If the decline continues for a full year، the loss will be 1.2 billion dollars if Iraqi oil is sold at less than 80 per dollar، a monthly loss of 1.2 billion dollar، and an annual loss of 14.4 billion dollars. Iraqi crude was trading at 68 dollars a barrel today.
He added that “the second earthquake، OPEC cut Iraqi oil production، due to the export of 200،000 barrels of oil per day by tanker and about 60،000 barrels of domestic consumption، OPEC has asked Iraq to cut about 200،000 barrels of oil production 480 million dollars and an estimated 5.7 billion dollars annually.”.
Also، he mentioned، “the third earthquake is the failure to return the oil revenues to the Iraqi federal government، despite the budget obliged the Kurdistan Region to export 400،000 barrels of oil per day and return the revenue to the state treasury، which costs 11.6 billion dollars annually.”.
Thus, the total losses are estimated at 31.5 billion dollars, equivalent to 41 trillion dinars and 70% of the total state salary.
“If the first thing happened outside the power and will of everyone, but the second and third one is the responsibility of the prime minister and the government,” he said.
