Iraq and Kurdistan unable to resolve 2021 federal budget

An Iraqi MP has said that the federal government in Baghdad and the northern Kurdistan Region have been unable to resolve their disagreements over the country’s federal budget for 2021, local media have reported.

Mazen Al-Faisaly MP said that the Kurdistan Region delegation has refused to include clear and explicit details of the amount of oil delivered from the regional oil fields to the federal government. He added that the parliament and the government are not obliged to pay for the contracts concluded by the Kurdistan Regional Government with foreign oil companies because they violate the constitution.

The Iraqi federal government insists on receiving oil produced from the region and selling it through the state-owned oil company, SOMO.

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Parliament has postponed a vote on the draft federal budget for the fiscal year 2021 until next Saturday. The parliamentary Finance Committee has completed the draft bill for the budget, with a total expenditure exceeding 129 trillion Iraqi dinars and a deficit of 28 trillion dinars.

The draft budget set the ceiling for crude oil exports at 3.2 million barrels per day, including 250,000 barrels from Kurdistan oil fields, at a price of $45 per barrel.