Following the sudden loss of about 2 trillion dinars from the budget, the problem of changing the budget schedules caused a lot of debate in the House of Representatives.
In a letter to the House of Representatives, the General Secretariat of the Council of Ministers asked about the changes being made to the budget tables. The letter said, “After examining the printed tables attached to the Parliament letter signed by the (acting) Speaker of the House of Representatives, it was revealed that there are fundamental differences in them compared to the sent copy.” From the Council of Ministers and not in line with what the government decided.
Member of the Parliamentary Finance Committee, Representative Jamal Kujar, confirmed that the manipulation occurred after voting on the budget tables in Parliament.
In a press release, he noted that the party allegedly meddling with the timetables was unknown and urged an inquiry into the problem.
Under Mr. Mohsen Al-Mandalawi, Acting Speaker of the House, the House of Representatives convened its twenty-seventh session today, Monday, in front of 199 deputies. Last May 18 the House of Representatives decided on the federal general budget law’s schedules.
Suspicions of losing the amount seem to center the Finance Committee as well as the House of Representatives’ presidency.
Regarding the matter of tampering with the budget tables for the current year, the Finance Committee in the House of Representatives specifically removed their place.
Ahmed Mazhar, Deputy Chairman of the Parliamentary Finance Committee, informed Al-Ma’louma Agency, “The committee is far removed from the problem brought regarding tampering with the budget tables. It went over the tables based on government-sent CD and subsequently presented them to the House of Representatives for a vote.
“The government’s rising of the issue of tampering with 2 trillion dinars in the budget tables, as it claims, is very surprising,” he said.
“If there is tampering with the budget tables, then the Presidency of the House of Representatives can be questioned,” he said.
Parliamentary Finance established an inquiry committee on the matter in order to clear its name, which infuriated the Iraqi Council of Representatives Presidency.
As a member of the Parliamentary Finance Committee, Moeen Al-Kadhimi said he was taken aback by the Parliament Presidency’s rejection of creating an investigative committee looking at budget revisions.
Forming an investigative committee is the prerogative of the Finance Committee, expressing his disappointment at the disagreement of the Presidency of Parliament to the formation of the committee that does not need consent, Al-Kadhimi said Al-Maalouma Agency.
“The Finance Committee is in the process of inquiring about the reason of the difference in the budget tables between the parliamentary version and the government version, noting that the committee asked the relevant authorities to reveal the manipulation of the numbers,” he said.
Furthermore, Muhammad Al-Ziyadi, the spokesman for the State Support Bloc, verified that signatures had been gathered to insert a paragraph analyzing the government’s assertion that following voting on the budget tables the versions of the tables differed.
“The government sent a letter to the House of Representatives claiming that the schedules that were sent to it by Parliament vary from those schedules that it sent to Parliament,” Al-Ziyadi informed the Maalouma Agency.
“This book produced a confused environment between Parliament and the government, and parliamentary signatures were gathered to include a paragraph to discuss the issue in order to determine the truth of the dispute between Parliament and the government regarding the schedules and who was the party behind it,” he said.
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