January 15, 2023
Baghdad / Obelisk: The huge operating expenses in the fiscal budget for the year 2023 have provided many jobs for unemployed youth, and have won the support of the political blocs that they need to win the approval of the street and the public looking for job opportunities.
However, these expenditures cause a decrease in the investment expenditures allocated in the budget for the development of the state’s service facilities and infrastructure, which will have serious implications in the future, in addition to the absence of expenditures on productive projects and the development of agriculture and industry, and this means the almost complete dependence of the state, of employees and people, on oil. .
The weightings indicate that the amounts of the budget law will reach 130 trillion dinars, while information talks about a financial deficit in the budget estimated at 10 trillion dinars.
The Ministry of Finance is responsible for preparing the draft budget law from the operational side, while the Ministry of Planning is responsible for the investment side.
Statistics indicate that the number of employees and retirees who receive salaries from the state has reached 7 million employees.
And the expert on economic affairs, Ali Al-Sheikh, considered that going more than 60 percent of the state budget on employee salaries, which amounts to about $6 billion per month, is a big mistake that successive governments bear.
And salary insurance in Iraq depends on oil by 94%, and at a time when the population is increasing, there is no announced plan to absorb the momentum of financial burdens through production projects that do not depend on the state.
Ahmed al-Ziyadi, who is interested in political affairs, says that an increase in the number of state employees means an increase in the salary item in the budget, and the result is a decrease in the number of projects and the lack of financial and economic security, which means any drop in oil prices will make Iraq return to the policy of domestic and international borrowing. state collapse.
But the paradox is that the large number of employees in state institutions did not result in production, returns with financial returns or service to the citizen, as the follower of Iraqi affairs Hussein Haidar says, asking the question about what is provided by the huge number of employees whose salaries occupy the largest part of the budget, while the citizen needs when he needs to promote The simplest transaction that he pays with connections and bribes, and everyone knows the state of service facilities throughout Iraq and the services provided by the state.
This does not seem strange, as aliens are in many state institutions, especially the army and security forces, and many of their salaries go to officials and leaders.
And the political analyst, Ali Mared Al-Asadi, talks about the greatest danger that threatens the fate of Iraq as a state in the coming year, with the Iraqi government’s reliance on borrowing, its failure to maximize non-oil imports, its reluctance to compress operating expenses and unify the salary scale in order to achieve relative justice among employees.
On the part of the political hypocrisy on the issue of appointments, the political analyst, Muhammad al-Kubaisi, says that certain parties are promoting that the International Monetary Fund stipulated that Iraq stop appointments in order to obtain a financial loan, but it turned out that this condition was set by the Iraqi government in 2016 in order to reduce operating expenses.
Observer of Iraqi affairs, Ali al-Moussawi talks about the instructions of the International Monetary Fund because what is required is the transformation of the capitalist economy, the reduction of public jobs and the imposition of taxes. The bank did not take into account the lack of a private sector in Iraq, and therefore their measures led to the spread of poverty.
Political researcher Basil Hussein accuses Iraqi politicians of deliberately, for years, buying loyalties by providing government jobs.
And the International Monetary Fund announced earlier that the youth unemployment rate in Iraq amounts to more than 40%, while government jobs have reached a glut, while the private sector and attracting foreign investment are absent from playing a role in creating job opportunities.
Prepared by Sajjad Al-Khafaji
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