Talabani: Baghdad has conceded all oil and non-oil revenues to the region in exchange for our agreement to the presence of a team to monitor border crossings

by **claud39** Sat Feb 06, 2021 10:00 am

Talabani: Baghdad has conceded all oil and non-oil revenues to the region in exchange for our agreement to the presence of a team to monitor border crossings

02/06/2021

Economy News - Baghdad

The Vice President of the Kurdistan Regional Government, Qubad Talabani, announced that the agreement concluded between the governments of Mustafa Al-Kazemi and the Kurdistan Region guarantees that the region will obtain all oil and non-oil revenues in exchange for approval to send a technical team to monitor border crossings in the region.

Qubad said, in an interview published by the National News Center website and seen by Al-Iqtisad News, “Political forces are constantly accusing the Kurds of seizing Basra oil, but we are in fact not responsible, and the proof of this is that the region’s share of the state’s full budget is, It is 5 percent, but from 2014 until 2018 we did not receive any sums from the federal government, ”indicating that“ if these sums were spent on investment projects in Basra or Dhi Qar, we would be happy, but these sums disappeared without knowing where they went ?! “.

He added, “In the eighth month of the year 2020, there was an agreement between the governments of Baghdad and Erbil, whereby the federal government informed us that oil and non-oil imports are all for the region, and they also pay us 320 billion dinars per month, in exchange for agreeing to send a technical team to monitor border crossings at Territory ”.

He continued, "This agreement did not last for long, as the federal government sent the amount for only two months, and then it stopped," wondering: "Where did you spend these sums? Was it spent on Baghdad, Basra, or Salah al-Din? ”

He pointed out that "the Kurdistan region has become (the peg) on which the files of corruption and problems are attached," noting that "if the Basra problem was solved by the region's entitlement from the funds allocated to it, we would have given up this entitlement."

Talabani stressed, "The Kurdistan region is ready to implement all obligations with the federal government, whether it is about oil of 250 thousand barrels per day, or even non-oil resources in the region’s outlets, according to the laws in force within the constitution, but in return the rights of the region must also be provided."

He noted that “the main source of imports in the region is oil, and through these imports many forms of expenditures are secured in the region, and therefore if we do not have such a single source, then this means that there are no guarantees that we will obtain our expenditures that we can from During which the region's debts are to be paid.

He added, "If we speak from a technical point, the Federal Ministry of Finance has registered figures that the number of employees in the Kurdistan region is 683 thousand employees, while there are more than 751 thousand employees in the region, how can we pay salaries at the time to employees whose names do not exist in the Finance?" Federal If we do not have our own source of income, ”stressing that“ there is a difference in the number of employees registered with the Federal and Regional Finance by about 70 thousand employees. ”

And he continued, we hope to build a new relationship related to oil and finance with the central government, and we have faith that this will be achieved step by step, until we reach the establishment of a new Sumo company in which there are members of the Board of Directors, but we are still at the beginning and this needs to work more to increase confidence between the two parties .

Talabani said, "What the Federal Oil Minister talked about, regarding linking all the oil of the Kurdistan region to one administration of the federal government, is an unconstitutional request."

The deputy prime minister of the provincial government explained, "The majority of the questions were related to the region's expenditures, the number of employees and the expenses, but I told them to leave the discussion about the sources of financing for the time being, because each budget is made up of several parts that include imports, expenses, deficits and debts."

He added that "there are many types of operating expenses, pensions, social care, grants to political prisoners and martyrs, in addition to the development of regions and the operational budget. All of these are expenditures, debts and loans, and must be disbursed on a monthly basis."

He noted that “these expenditures are covered by the sources of funding that we have, which is the central government, in addition to the oil and non-oil revenues that we have, and therefore the discussion with the Finance Committee should be about the expenditures from what comes from and how they are covered, not just about revenues “.

He pointed out that "the region wants to solve the outstanding problems with Baghdad in the fastest way in order to be implementable. We may not be 100% happy with what may emerge from these dialogues, but we are working at least step by step forward, we are with any result that may be implementable." He called on everyone to "move away from the electoral atmosphere, emotion and slogans, and to search for regional solutions for this stage."

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