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Iraq parliament sets end June as deadline for draft budget

June 4, 2020 at 11:12 am

A parliamentary session at the Parliament Building in Baghdad, Iraq on 3 September 2018 [Haydar Karaalp/Anadolu Agency]

Iraq’s Parliament yesterday set a deadline of the end of the June for the government to submit the draft 2020 budget, Anadolu reported.

The Gulf state has yet to approve the confederal budget for 2020 due to the ongoing protests which began in October 2019 and ousted the government of Adil Abdul-Mahdi in December.

Anadolu reported parliament voted 184 in favour of submitting the draft budget by 30 June. There are 329 possible votes in parliament.

The new government, headed by Mustafa Al-Kadhimi, is preparing the budget in the light of a strict financial crisis hitting the country due to the collapse of oil prices in the international markets.

Iraq, OPEC’s second-largest oil exporter, depends mainly on crude trade to cover the cost of about 95 per cent of its expenses.

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