Ammar Tohme: We reject the government's approach to borrowing from the International Monetary Fund and offering government bonds

by **RamblerNash** Sun Aug 08, 2021 10:32 pm

Sunday 08 August 2021 13:59

Baghdad / NINA / - The head of the National Approach Bloc, Ammar Tohme, expressed his rejection of the government's tendency to borrow four billion dollars from the International Monetary Fund, especially since the Minister of Finance announced that he did not expect to obtain the loan until the end of this year.

He said in a press statement: "The total revenues in excess of what is fixed for the Iraqi oil selling price in the budget amounted to more than (7.7) billion dollars during the first six months of the current year, which is more than the amount of borrowing assumed by (3.7) billion dollars."

Tohme added: "Coupling such loans with harsh conditions shackles the Iraqi economy and restricts its programs, resulting in steps harmful to the general Iraqi citizens, and mortgaging the economic decision with a strange and incompatible approach with the Iraqi situation, such as raising the dollar exchange rate.

He explained: "The serious approach to collecting non-oil federal revenues from its many sources (ports, mobile phone companies alone) will provide four times the amount that is supposed to be borrowed."

He stressed the need to take courageous national decisions on the issue of oil licensing rounds, which average annual cost of (15) trillion dinars, as well as the issue of contracts in the Kurdistan region with foreign and unfair companies against Iraq and its economy, which will provide huge amounts of money that will suffice us from the wrong borrowing policy and its economic, political and social consequences.

With the same justifications above, Tohme said: "We reject what was announced by Finance Minister Ali Allawi that the government, in cooperation with the Central Bank of Iraq, will issue government bonds amounting to 1.5 trillion dinars, equivalent to approximately (1) billion dollars." / End 3

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