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Political economy of the 2012 budget .. Questions looking for answers and a clear 1-5 / d. Yasser Saleh
Wednesday, 18 December / 2 January 2012 09:51
/ D. Yasser Saleh
The beginning it should be noted that the Iraqi economy is suffering, in the current circumstances, many of the problems of nature structural, such as felt by the average citizen's daily problems such as unemployment, poor services, transportation, and the deterioration of the health system, and the low level of education at all levels, and security risks , high prices continued low levels of living .. etc., and some are not felt immediately, but it is reflected in the end exacerbate the conditions of living, such as the continuing nature of profit-taking - service orientation of the national economy, and slowing the growth of the productive sectors, especially agriculture and industry, and the uneven development of the national economy, and lack of vision economic - social know what you want done to replace
Micro-processors .. Etc..
This observation is necessary to boot to the fact that he and when reading the data contained in the annual budget for the year 2012 we need, in fact, to launch a debate is far from the generalities about the content of the social / class for this budget, and the credibility of financial and economic policies in place, and their ability to contribute to the reduction of social disparities deep which increases continuously, and improve living conditions for the classes and social groups affected by the economic and social policies adopted by the defunct dictatorial regime. Teacher distinctive of this period, which also comes as an extension of the period that preceded any period of the dictatorship, is the aggravation of social inequalities, and deepen the sort of class, social, and worsening unemployment and Bmdiat wide, and growing social exclusion seriously, which is threatening tensions social may be difficult to control if the burst Today contradictions suppressed by several factors, some of which is located outside the economy of course.
Beginning of the emphasis must be placed on two main points here and I mean them:
First, the human rights, and that of the general budget is a legal mechanism to regulate the expenses of the state and its resources, and this is the formal part.
Second, the social aspect - the political content of any budget, and means that the annual public budget translated into a political tool and the philosophy of the interests of the dominant forces in society, even though engineers boasted that it is designed for all. In this regard, the identification of intellectual references of the public budget in Iraq should not be separated from the search for forms of control of the dominant forces and the method of translating the interests of these powers through the development of financial laws to ensure the dominance of these forces on the economic level, and then employ it at the political level.
References and principles and general principles for the preparation of the budget in 2012
By building on the philosophy of the general budget for the year / 2012 Maduha began to identify their goals and their references. In this regard, reference was made in the introduction to "the foundation and general principles for the preparation of estimates of the general budget of the State" that the budget targets derived from the following four references:
- Government policies listed in the Prime Minister's speech at the first meeting of the government of national partnership on 22/12/2010.
- The budget in 2011.
- National Development Plan published in May 2010.
- Anti-poverty strategy issued in November 2009. "
But the reference there is another, very important, is not mentioned here, but we found them in the letter of the Minister of Finance to the Cabinet a budget of 2012 to prevent the said Council. Within the message we find the following text, which indicates that the budget "prepared according to the foundations of scientific and international standards and principles and priorities and directives adopted by the International Monetary Fund IMF (Planning I - r. J) about it."
Fifth reference, then, represented by "international player", and is the International Monetary Fund, and is known as the fund does not exercise the role of a spare player sits on the bench .. It is usually practiced in developing countries, including our country, the role of offensive player and playmaker!. I would not comment on its impact on the budget preparation, but leave it to the reader to discover himself Allbeb this role through the paragraphs above, and many of the subsequent observations.
Click on table to enlarge
Based on the above references have been identified a number of foundations and general principles adopted for the preparation of budget estimates for the year / 2012, of the following:
First - give priority to achieving security and stability and providing the requirements of the success of the security plans that will support national reconciliation.
II - Building the capabilities of the ministries and departments, agencies and public companies to the state to enable them to provide and satisfy the needs and basic services to citizens through the development of capacity and skills for all levels of staff in government departments.
III - Working to formulate an appropriate mechanism for improving the operational capabilities of the ministries so as to ensure access to balance with high flexibility in order to achieve the goals envisaged for the budget year / 2012 through to reach the medium-term vision aimed at reducing the deficit.
IV - the quest for balance between revenues and expenditures so as to ensure deficit reduction relative to (the gap) the budget and reduce the burden of public debt.
V. - Distribution of expenditure and allocations between projects to achieve the required balance between the provision of public services and to achieve an economic growth rate appropriate to expand in the process of reconstruction and the reconstruction and development of infrastructure to provide the right climate to attract investments.
VI - focus on the reconstruction of infrastructure provision and provide the prerequisites for economic construction and the provision of basic services to citizens.
VII - In order to reach the goals envisaged for the budget year / 2012 the focus was on improving the capabilities in the areas of security and national defense projects and the oil sector, electricity services and basic infrastructure and the master and working to absorb or address unemployment through the development of sectors and activities, and implementation of projects and capacity building as well as to improve the environment and safeguard human rights and provide job opportunities to absorb unemployment.
VIII - to emphasize the importance of the implementation of projects by companies and local contractors, except in cases that require foreign expertise in line with the strategy adopted in the state to provide jobs and contribute to reducing unemployment.
Click on table to enlarge
IX - for the purpose of providing customizations stomach spending required to provide the necessary financial resources sufficient to meet the important part of these assignments, which require concerted efforts to strengthen the capacity of agencies responsible for monitoring and collection of miscellaneous income as funding sources that reflect the importance of economic activity and the smooth flow of business departments and institutions in enhancing the balance of financial resources and return to normal.
X. - To stimulate the private sector and given the necessary facilities for his service and development to be a leader to advance the progress and development.
Eleven - to the trend towards the operation of public sector companies on an economic basis and to achieve the principle of self-financing it has withheld amounts of support that was provided to these companies (except some exceptions) for the years past and arrange access to loans from government banks in coordination with the Ministry of Finance, thus easing the burden on the public budget and paid toward the organization of their positions and activating its activity.
Twelve - is still revenue derived from export of crude oil resource is the foundation of the general budget and to diversify sources of funding for the public treasury, the range of measures must be taken to achieve this, including: -
• speed to activate the law of customs tariff, which was stopped.
• Take the ministries and departments concerned a rapid and effective procedures for the collection of water services, electricity and sewer on private consumption levels, as well as higher fees for licenses, licenses and miscellaneous fees and fines.
• activation of the General Commission for Taxes and take an active role in obtaining the various taxes.
Thirteen - in line with the philosophy of the state and its approach and we put in the draft budget, the need to start ministries and governorates not to implement projects that could be opportunities for local or foreign investors to expand the activity of private investment and accelerate the construction and reconstruction, and the concentration of the ministries and provinces on the other projects that are not provided by the investor private infrastructure projects.
Fourteen - we are in a time when we do our best to develop the budget to serve the interest of the country and the citizen, we certainly can not meet all the needs and requirements, programs, and we tried to focus on the priorities to the extent possible and to emphasize here that the estimates have been developed on the basis of a deliberate and thorough review and that what appeared What is the best we can offer. "
Reading levels of the general budget for the year / 2012
Theoretically, there are several levels to read the budget and all the reading course is conditional on their circumstances and the methodological and practical difficulties faced by the process of reading. There is a reading that focuses on the methodological level in the preparation of the State budget, and there read that shed light on the technical level and Mahaspata. However, these readings are facing many difficulties do not have the space here to enter into details.
For this and to avoid difficulties and to overcome the guesswork and intuition, can resort to a third reading. Under this reading, is dealing with the budget as a tool of economic policy, which is available for interested in this problem, the adoption of this reading, objective data can be held accountable through the budget.
We will try here to provide a reading of 2012 budget based on public data associated with them. We will here focus on the launch of a range of questions, about the significance of digital indicators of the budget for the year 2012, both through the structure of public expenditure or the structure of public revenues and the deficit and nature, and how to estimate the economic and social policies through this budget, which allows detection Maghazi class for this budget and what are the beneficiaries which by and affected by them, which allows to demonstrate that the budget is not just a set of numbers, but a neutral expression of the power in the proportions of the concrete historical moment.
In order to prevent inaccurate conclusions must be emphasized that you can not understand the essence of the current budget in isolation from the "uniqueness" of political processes and economic / social ongoing since the change in the 9/4/2003 and the nature of the forces that carried out and the consequences that followed. There is a new balance of power arose from the moment that, influenced by his movement and trends, for the most part, and subject to the influence of the prevailing balance of power, and translated his finance this submission clearly.
A quick tour in a speech
Minister of Finance
A few weeks ago about the Minister of Finance. Rafie al-Issawi the federal budget for 2012, which is the largest budget in the history of contemporary Iraq, and that to each of the "State of the Prime Minister esteemed; HE gentlemen, the Vice-Chairman Honorable Ministers, honorable gentlemen, Honorable ministers," he said in his letter that this budget " prepared according to the foundations of scientific and international standards and principles and priorities and directives adopted by the IMF about it. "
And finally, "through meetings with the IMF and in the presence of the Prime Minister and later the presence of the Parliamentary Committee in the House of Representatives has been reached," according to a letter d. Issawi to a number of additional measures:
1 - would be re-considered estimates of operating expenses reached by the committee in the General Secretariat of the Council of Ministers by taking into account the discount rate (4%) of the provisions of Article (3) of the federal budget law No. (12) for the year / 2011 and that have not been disbursement of $ (2.7) trillion dinars.
2 - Reduce the amount of (6.1) trillion dinars of the total proposed capital expenditures for the year / 2012.
3 - to postpone the proposed increase on pensions by paying half the amount and the other half be deferred to the budget year / 2013 or in the preparation of a supplemental budget in the case of increasing crude oil export revenues than planned budget.
4 - the inclusion of allocations of salaries of employees of public companies that are funded through borrowings from banks and the government of $ (3.597) trillion dinars within the budget of the year / 2012.
5 - to migrate all the additions been the subject of Cabinet decisions to balance the year / 2013 or when the savings in exports of crude oil source for the year / 2012 and described in the table attached hereto.
6 - increases in the conversion of all revenues to investment projects for regional development in all provinces .
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