Opposition Parties Accuse KRG of Mishandling Budget
Kurdish oppposition politicians have accused the Kurdistan Regional Government of mismanagement ahead of deliberations on the 2013 federal budget, of which the region will receive an estimated $18 billion, writes Abdel Hamid Zebari.
Ever since opposition forces emerged in the Iraqi Kurdistan Parliament following the 2009 elections, in which they won more than a quarter of the seats, there has been discussion regarding the region's budget law.
The region receives 17% of the total Iraqi federal budget. As this amount is expected to be about $18 billion in 2013, the opposition has intensified its accusations against the region's two ruling parties, claiming that they have wasted money and used the budget for partisan purposes. These parties are the Kurdistan Democratic Party, led by Kurdistan President Massoud Barzani, and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, led by Jelal Talabani, who currently holds the post of Iraqi president.
According to unofficial statistics, the Kurdistan region is home to more than five million people, concentrated in three governorates: Erbil, Sulaymaniyah and Dohuk.
The three opposition forces in the semi-autonomous Kurdish region — the Movement for Change, the Islamic Group in Kurdistan and the Kurdistan Islamic Union — have boycotted parliamentary debates on the budget, and accuse the provincial government of not setting clear rules for the distribution of the budget.
