The Vice President of Diyala Provincial Council says the current council is better than the previous one, and they are working with all their power to implement service projects for all cities and towns of the province despite the political disagreements that may hinder, yet work is continuing to present a new image of Diyala.
During a special interview with a KirkukNow, Salem Al-Tamimi confirmed that department managers are exploiting municipal workers for personal purposes, and this is clear exploitation by them, and they will work to end this phenomenon.
KirkukNow: Have the main committees of the provincial council been formed?
Salem Al-Tamimi: Most of the committees in the council have been formed, including the main committees, and the number of members of most of them has been completed, and some of them have started practicing their duties for more than a month, by sending biweekly and monthly reports, since one of the committees' tasks is to send reports to the council for further discussions.
There are still some complications regarding the procedures for forming the council, especially with regard to drafting and amending the council's bylaws which have not been fully prepared yet, as it requires more discussions to reach the optimal formulation.
KirkukNow: Do you have information about the timing of sending the budget?
Salem Al-Tamimi: The delay in forming the Diyala Provincial Council has negatively affected projects and budgets, and we need time to sign new projects or complete what we started previously, and we also need time to inquire about the level of achievement of previous projects.
Most of the projects for 2023/2024 were approved by the Ministry of Planning after being submitted by the previous council, which makes the role of the current provincial council only supervisory, and we do not have our own projects, but rather focus on monitoring and following up on previous projects and we have projects that can be launched through the Reconstruction Fund budget, the potential spending of which we are still discussing.
Diyala Provincial Council lacks many projects related to infrastructure and service departments, as most of the departments in the province are dilapidated and have been in place for a long time. What is interesting is that we have not noticed any buildings that the province is proud of or can use to receive high-ranking figures who arrive in the province over the past 20 years. Our approach is towards building architectural projects that will be a landmark for the province.
The delay in forming the Diyala Provincial Council has negatively affected projects and budgets
KirkukNow: What are the aspects of oversight that you will undertake?
Salem Al-Tamimi: We focus on monitoring the implementation of service projects, especially those that have a direct impact on the lives of citizens. We have many projects in the province, but they lack precision in work, specific timings for completion and delivery. For example, there are more than seven projects in the Roads and Bridges Department, which have been stalled for years. They are supposed to be under construction or completed, but so far we do not see any real work to fulfil it.
These aspects represent the most important aspects of our monitoring as a provincial council. There is also the Turkish hospital or the German hospital that have been referred since 2012 and have not yet seen the light of day due to lack of follow-up and oversight.
KirkukNow: How are projects distributed to cities and regions?
Salem Al-Tamimi: Among our tasks as a provincial council is the fair distribution of wealth according to the population ratios of all districts and sub-districts, and the province's wealth must be fairly distributed.
KirkukNow: Disagreements between council members can affect the work of the council?
Salem Al-Tamimi: The disagreements between the council members are a healthy situation, and the governments that work without opposition do not succeed, as the opposition generates a greater incentive to work and compete in order to provide the best, and that our colleagues in the council do not share the same thought and political vision, but we are colleagues in work, as the disagreements are related to the fact that we tried to have a new administration for each Diyala Provincial Council from the governor down to the smallest employee in the province and we are determined to have a new administration, while others disagree.
KirkukNow: What about the heads of administrative units?
Salem Al-Tamimi: In the last session, the issue of the directors of administrative units was decided, and due to the delay in sending some personal information (CVs) for some candidates, and in the coming days we will work on completing this file, especially for the districts that submitted their candidates and they are chosen according to the criteria of competence and experience, and we are determined to finalize it this task.
KirkukNow: Do you have ideas for specific projects in Diyala Province?
Salem Al-Tamimi: There is an initiative from the Prime Minister to launch a package of projects from several provinces. We need him to launch a package of projects like the ones he launched in Karbala and Hillah, to prove to everyone that the local government is continuous and works side by side with the federal government and to prove that we are a service government.
Diyala Province is one of the provinces that suffers from a shortage of green areas
KirkukNow: What are the plans of the Diyala Provincial Council to enhance transparency with the people?
Salem Al-Tamimi: I see that going down to the street and being close to the citizen, organizations and people's opinions, as Vice President I deal a lot with the appeals that reach me from the cities and districts of the province, for example we had an appeal from the Mandali district and the Saadiya area, the gap between the politician and the citizen must be bridged, the doors of our offices are open and as a tribal sheikh I have a guest and I am honored to serve the people and we are part of the street and I consider this the real communication with the masses.
KirkukNow: Do you think that this council is different from previous councils?
Salem Al-Tamimi: Yes, 100% different. This council has an architectural vision and communicates with everyone. What is important in this is the diversity in thought and political action, not the disagreement in administrative and architectural action. Despite the differences, when a topic related to construction is raised, it is discussed by everyone.
KirkukNow: Do you have initiatives to plant trees in the city and care about the environmental aspect?
Salem Al-Tamimi: Diyala is one of the provinces that suffers from a shortage of green areas, due to the policies of previous administrations, most of the green areas have been turned into residential areas. We held more than one session with the directors of the departments assigned to this issue, and we have ideas in this regard, and we only need to be determined to return Diyala as an agricultural area, as for the voluntary campaigns, they do not fulfill the purpose, unless there is an integrated campaign by the local governments to plant trees and restore the green areas.
At the level of Al-Khalis district, I personally have been carrying out a cleaning campaign for a week, but the work is difficult due to the lack of logistics such as sweepers that clean the streets within the directives of the Diyala Provincial Council, directing towards purchasing more of the necessary materials to clean the province, as for the level of public hands, there is a very large shortage.
The municipality's allocations are very high, but the interference of politics with administrative work has led to the allocation of municipal workers to serve the directors, meaning that city workers are exploited for personal purposes, there is a clear diagnosis of all the errors, and we are in the process of addressing them.
*This story has been produced as part of the 'Budget is Your Right' initiative, with support from the National Democratic Institute (NDI).
