Shaalan Al-Karim, a member of the Iraqi Council of Representatives for Salahaddin, says that the previous local government of his province wasted a lot of money from its budget and wasted many projects for peoples, the most important of which are paving main roads, building schools and public utility projects.
Al-Karim spoke to a Kirkuk Now correspondent about the petrodollar amounts, the general budget and the mechanism for disbursing it for the next stage, taking into account the population density of each city within the borders of Salahaddin.
The predominantly Sunni province of Salahaddin, about 135 kilometers north of the Iraqi capital, once home for Saddam Hussein, is under the control of Iraqi Security Forces ISF including the Shia-led paramilitary Popular Mobilization Forces PMF, known as al-Hashid al-Shabi.
The most problem-free provincial council in Iraq was Salahaddin, which met as the first council on February 4 and formed a local government within hours. Al-Jamahir al-Watania (National Masses) coalition, which included a number of Sunni Arab and Kurdish parties, won four of the 15 seats of the provincial council of last December elections and formed a local government with several other Sunni parties, including the Siyada (Sovereignty) and al-Hasim al-Watani (National Decisiveness) coalitions.
The provincial council of Salahaddin consists of 15 seats, four of which reserved for women, according to the population (over 1.6 million people) and based on the latest amendments to the electoral law of the Iraqi parliament and provincial councils.
KirkukNow: Is Salahaddin's share of the budget fair and is it within your ambition?
Al-Karim: The budget is for the people to provide all services in various fields, the most important of which are transportation and stability, and vital projects that serve the interests of the people. In fact, we are not satisfied with the amounts allocated in the budget for our province because it is destroyed, and the Salahaddin government needs support from Baghdad to improve its urban status.
KirkukNow: In 2016, the House of Representatives voted on a number of Salahaddin cities as disaster-stricken, including Beiji district (home for Iraq’s biggest oil refinery and gigantic thermal and gas power plant). Has money been allocated to rebuild this town?
Al-Karim: Not only Baiji district is disaster-stricken, but there are disaster-stricken areas in Salahaddin, including Tuz Khurmatu and Amerli districts, especially the Arab areas, which have not had potable water or electricity restored to this moment.
As for Baiji, it is a major disaster in terms of destruction, and unfortunately it was only election propaganda and no money was allocated for it, as evidenced by the fact that its roads and the rehabilitation of its districts were not completed and the city’s neighborhoods are destroyed. We only see the self-effort made by the locals to rebuild their houses, and many of them have not received the compensation allocated to them by the Iraqi government and the compensation committee, and there is a gap or a decline in the disbursement of dues (the intention is to assess the damages, meaning if the owner of the house deserves 5 million Iraqi dinars (USD3,300) in compensation, they estimate it at only 2 and so on).
There are no sufficient funds allocated for the areas, as we said in Tuz Khurmatu, as well as other cities in the vicinity of Balad district and Yathrib sub-district, some of which are still abandoned and no money has been allocated to them.
KirkukNow: Let’s talk about the petrodollar budget, has the governorate received those amounts?
Al-Karim: Before the Daesh (ISIS) phase, the province received its financial dues, but I have little information about this file. However, after 2014 and the expulsion of Daesh, the dues were suspended because they came from the Baiji refinery and the Ajil and Alas fields. The truth is that the percentage of the local government’s dues for Salah al-Din is very small and does not meet the needs, but it contributes in one way or another to the province’s projects. We hope to increase productivity in the Baiji refinery in the current or near future phase so that there will be an increase for Salah al-Din Province.
If we compare our province with other provinces in the petrodollar project such as Nineveh, Kirkuk, Basra and Baghdad, we will find a big difference.
KirkukNow: Let’s go back to the general budget, is it distributed fairly according to population density?
Al-Karim: The budget allocated for development projects and the operational advance for the year 2024 is 180 billion Iraqi dinars, and according to the governor, Mr. Badr al-Fahil, the central government has spent only 10 billion.
The budget distribution according to population density is somewhat acceptable, and there are ongoing and very old projects and a decision was made that the allocated amounts are for old projects without creating new projects, which is a sound decision.
Up to now and since 2013, we have more than 400 schools that were demolished to be rebuilt and were not completed, as there are roads, transportation, health centers and buildings belonging to the province center and other areas that were not completed due to the lack of financial allocations.
Creating new projects and not completing old ones will cause damage and waste of money, and some projects such as steel warehouses (big empty halls) in the previous stage took very large amounts of money for personal interest and not in the interest of the people, for example, if a school was built, it was better than building 20 gables that are of no benefit, and there were ill-considered projects without feasibility assessment or planning, and thus the decision to allocate funds for old projects is sound, and because of these mistakes, the Salah al-Din government fell into problems with the Ministries of Planning and Finance in Baghdad, and this is a waste of the people's rights in the budget.
*This story has been produced as part of the 'Budget is Your Right' initiative, with support from the National Democratic Institute (NDI).
