Iraqi News Thursday AM 9-17-20
Iraqi News Thursday AM 9-17-20
TLM724 Administrator BondLady’s Corner
Agenda For The Parliament Session On Saturday
Time: 09/17/2020 15:31:16 Read: 2,106 times
{Baghdad: Al Furat News} Parliament will hold its regular session next Saturday.
Parliament's information department published the meeting's agenda.
The schedule was devoid of the draft law of the state's general budget for the year 2020 after it was approved by the Council of Ministers and referred to the Council in an extraordinary session held last Monday. LINK
Hassan Al Kaabi: We Will Uncover Major Corruption Files In Electricity
Thursday 17th September 2020 169 Baghdad: Morning The First Deputy Speaker of Parliament, Hassan Al-Kaabi, revealed an initial report that includes billions in waste, violations, and major corruption files in investment contracts at the Ministry of Electricity, which will be announced during the next few years.
A statement of his office stated that “Al-Kaabi chaired a meeting of the Order Committee (62) concerned with investigating and checking contracts for the Ministry of Electricity since 2003 until now, in the presence of the Chairman of the Parliamentary Services and Construction Committee Walid Sahlani, member of the Parliamentary Economic Committee, Atwan Al-Atwani, Head of the Financial Supervision Bureau, Rafel Yassin Khudair Agency and General Director The Investigation Department of the Integrity Commission, Karim Al-Ghazzi ».
The meeting reviewed the parliamentary-supervisory measures taken regarding the disclosure of files of corruption and waste in public money related to contracts and stations of the Ministry of Electricity, in addition to a detailed graphical-numerical explanation of all the cases and files that were considered by the committee during the previous period.
Al-Kaabi confirmed, according to the statement, that “the committee will hold a new meeting next week to complete the roadmap that was drawn up for the committee’s work and prepare the initial report on the violations and files documented by the heads and members of the parliamentary committees affiliated with the Order 62 Committee and the role of the field teams that moved from the first day of the formation of the committee to the Ministry of Electricity. And the departments and stations affiliated with it, and the efforts of the Integrity Commission and the Board of Financial Supervision in that. LINK
The Straw That Breaks The Back Of Rent
Wednesday 16th September 2020 33 Dr.. Basem Brahimi Describing the Iraqi economy as rentier has become one of the axioms that even a simple citizen knows, and the topic is no longer limited to specialists.
The rentier economy is the state of reliance on a single source of rent for "income" and often it is a natural source that does not require much effort, either intellectually or financially, to produce it ( Such as oil and gas). The economist Adam Smith was the first to use this term, as a form of financial returns, in his book "The Wealth of Nations" issued in 1776, but the first to use the term as an economic pattern was the thinker Karl Marx in his book "Capital." As he said, “In the rentier economy, kinship and tribal relations are strengthened, while in capitalist social formations, relations prevail
Production ».
In the rentier economy, the state gets easy returns without great efforts, and this provides it with an opportunity to boost its public expenditures and implement its economic programs, and these are positives. However, the risks of the rentier economy are very large and may outweigh its advantages, if it is not taken advantage of, as many rentier countries suffer From the inflation of its public sector, whose productivity is declining due to disguised unemployment, as well as rampant financial and administrative corruption as a result of weak oversight,
and is characterized by fluctuating returns as a result of changes in the prices of rentier commodities, and thus the state of economic instability in rentier countries as a result of external shocks, Rentier countries are also exposed to what is known as the "Dutch disease", which is represented by the decline in the productivity of other sectors, as a result of their neglect and the shift from them as a result of interest in the sector.
Rent-seeking.
Oil states, including Iraq, have suffered during the current crisis, the problem of inability to achieve financial sustainability and thus resort to borrowing, but short-term solutions cannot address the root of the problem, and therefore what is required in order to address this problem with all its phenomena that we mentioned is to diversify the economy, However, this goal needs a period of time that is not short and its signs cannot appear during the life of one government, and then what a government sows will be reaped by another and this is one of the political obstacles, and some of the required treatments may be difficult for the citizen and this is one of the social obstacles.
On the other hand, the economic challenges we face today may be more difficult than ever, and they need long-term solutions towards diversification. Could this crisis be the straw that breaks the back? Rent. LINK
Dr.. Zuhair Al-Hassani To Al-Sabah: Meeting Challenges Requires An Economic Rescue
Wednesday 16th September 2020 45 Baghdad: Shukran Al-Fatlawi A member of the Board of Trustees of the Iraqi Institute for Economic Reform, the economic expert, Dr. Zahir Al-Hasani, presented a set of solutions and proposals to address the challenges faced by the economic system and the chronic problems that accumulated for 17 years, during which huge sums were wasted during the financial abundance that was not employed to build a country with a modern, stable economic development system On the basis of the United Nations Program for Sustainable Development for the year 2030.
Al-Hasani reviewed the most prominent economic problems related to oil wealth, indicating that "the drop in its prices from $ 100 a barrel in 2010 to $ 25, due to the price war between the producing countries, and the sweeping of the Corona pandemic of the global economy and the economic and social lockdown, which led to the halting of factories, economic movement and oil marketing." .
He stressed that "this requires facing challenges by implementing a rescue operation for economic structures on the one hand, and financial and administrative functional performance on the other hand, by analyzing the causes of economic failure and searching for radical solutions, not surface treatments."
Structural structuralism
Al-Hasani identified "the factors that imposed these economic conditions on Iraq as being summed up by structural structural factors, functional and administrative factors," explaining that "the first is a result of the lack of good governance, which led to the waste of public money and the failure to direct spending to economic development, while the other resulted from the Allocating half of the general budget to the capital budget, not the investment budget, including salaries and subsidies, and allocating the remainder to the operational budget.
"Mismanagement has led to poor management of economic projects, including 9,000 economic projects that are lagging at a cost of 660 million dollars, and the lack of implementation of electronic governance has also caused a lack of transparency and poor performance," he added.
Radical reforms
Al-Husseini explained the necessary solutions to the root problems of the economic and administrative system, and addressing the economic structural factors, (the lack of identity of the national economy and the failure of both the public and private sectors to rebuild the economy and restore the economic cycle to achieve a circular flow of income) as requiring the elimination of rent resulting from the establishment of the national economy Oil dollar. "
He pointed out that "the general budget resources are based entirely on oil revenues, which makes them vulnerable to the fluctuations of the crude market and to the chronic financial deficit due to the collapse of prices, with the need for the state to build development projects and find non-oil resources for public spending."
The dominance of the comprador
Al-Hassani touched on the subject of privatization, saying: "The national economy is based on the hegemony of the public sector, which has not proven efficient in rebuilding, especially in the management of public companies that have become a burden on the Ministry of Finance and are charged with the salaries of huge numbers of unproductive surplus labor, which prevents profitability. In this department. "
Al-Hassani called for the necessity of rehabilitating these companies through the privatization of these companies, and added, "But two things are taken against this privatization, one of which is that the private sector today is a non-productive sector, most of which consists of" comprador merchants "seeking a quick profit by importing everything and not producing anything. It means selling them at the price of scrap, and the second of them is the rush of non-professional economic committees to buy these companies at a low price. "
It is noteworthy that the term "comprador" means the bourgeois class that soon allied with foreign capital in order to achieve its interests and to seize the national market.
Al-Hassani said, "Private sector investments from traders are real estate investments abroad and do not carry any national productive investment culture. They are" Comprador merchants "and not producers.
self management
Al-Hassani continued: "One of the solutions related to privatization is selling the shares of companies to workers to manage them by them, explaining that there is no possibility for these workers in this administration due to their financial and administrative competence," noting that "this policy rarely succeeded in Eastern European countries, while it succeeded under The system of self-management under the supervision of the socialist state of Yugoslavia. "
Al-Husseini stressed that "the best factor in Iraq is (privatization in partnership) between the public and private productive sectors, whether national or foreign, and the concerted efforts of efficient private management, government supervision and control, and bearing production risks in an integrated manner in this partnership, as it is a catalyst for quality and profitability.
And he continued, "The Ministry of Industry has succeeded in concluding a partnership for ten of its public companies in this field, and the partnership with French Lafarge in the cement industry with an Iraqi private sector is a great success in this partnership."
He stressed: "The need for the Council of Ministers to expedite the request to the concerned ministries to offer their companies as investment opportunities in partnership with the productive private sector in order to rehabilitate these public companies, solve the problem of surplus labor in them, and maximize non-oil resources." LINK
Parliamentary Finance Reveals A Dispute Over The Region's Oil In The 2020 Budget And The Number Of Job Ranks
Time: 09/17/2020 13:00:54 Read: 3,718 times {Baghdad: Al Furat News} The Parliamentary Finance Committee revealed that there is a dispute in the draft federal budget law for the year 2020.
Committee member Ahmed Hajj Rashid told Al-Furat News that "the budget bill for the year 2020 has not reached the House of Representatives yet now," indicating that there is a disagreement regarding the clause of the Kurdistan region handing over 250 thousand barrels of its oil production to the National Marketing Company (SOMO). .
He pointed to "determine the budget for the region 's share increased by 12.6% and the terms of polychlorinated 10 and 11 of the draft law."
He revealed Rashid about "the existence of 78 F degrees and careers , including more than 33 thousand degrees to the Ministry of Health." predicted "the arrival of the budget bill for 2021 to parliament Within 45 days. ”
A representative source ruled out including the draft federal budget law for the year 2020 in the agenda of the parliament scheduled to resume its sessions next Saturday. The source confirmed to {Al Furat News}" that the draft budget law has not yet reached Parliament. "
It is noteworthy that the Council of Ministers voted in an extraordinary session last Monday on the draft fiscal budget law for 2020, and referred it to the House of Representatives for approval. LINK
The Banking Sector Leads The Stock Market Towards More Gains
Iraqi Stock Exchange «Economy News» Market Economy News – Baghdad The banking sector led the stock market, Thursday, to rise in the closing session of this week.
Shares of the National Bank were the most valued and traded, with 1.05 billion shares traded at a value of 727.2 million dinars. The stock market index rose by 0.10% in today's session.
Eight companies entered the Green Zone, led by the shares of Al-Ataa Islamic Bank with 8.33% and the shares of Elaf Islamic Bank with 5.00%.
While 5 companies entered the red zone, the shares of modern industries led by 7.69% and Mosul's shares for amusement parks by 1.41%.
The closing session also witnessed the circulation of 2.1 billion shares, worth 1.5 billion dinars.
Foreign investors sold 370 million shares, worth 235 million dinars.
Number of observations 98 Date of addendum 09/17/2020
https://economy-news.net/content.php?id=21890
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