The newspapers issued in Baghdad today, Saturday, June 10, followed the atmosphere surrounding the House of Representatives’ start to vote on the draft budget law and the reasons for postponing some of its paragraphs and other security, political and economic issues.
On the vote on the budget, Al-Sabah newspaper, published by the Iraqi Media Network, said: “The House of Representatives adjourned its session, which was held yesterday evening, Friday, and extended until dawn, to five o’clock this afternoon, Saturday, after it voted, yesterday, Friday, on several articles within the draft federal budget law for the years (2023, 2024, 2025).
The newspaper added: “Due to the differences between the political blocs, the vote on Article 14 related to the region’s revenues was postponed, and the vote on Article 15 related to contracting and appointment and its paragraphs related to contracting in the interior, defense ministries and combating terrorism was also postponed, in addition to postponing the vote on paragraphs of Articles 16 and 17, while Parliament voted on Articles 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23 and 24).
It indicated that: “The session, which was postponed more than once for several hours, was preceded by side meetings between the Speaker of Parliament, Muhammad al-Halbousi, the head of Al-Fateh Alliance, Hadi al-Amiri, and the heads of the coordination framework blocs. The Kurdish political blocs also held similar meetings before the start of the budget voting session. First Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives, Mohsen Al-Mandalawi, held an important meeting with a number of heads of parliamentary blocs, in the presence of a chairman and a number of members of the Parliamentary Finance Committee, within the framework of his efforts to reach consensus among all parties regarding the budget law.
Regarding the reason for deleting paragraph 12 of Article 14 in the draft budget, which provides for compulsory savings for the region’s employees, Al-Sabah quoted Jamal Kougar, a member of the Finance Committee, saying that “the two main parties in the region sacrificed this paragraph that affects the people and fought over the paragraphs that affect them personally.”
While referring to the words of MP Kadhim Al-Touki: “Article 14 stipulates the opening of a bank account in which the region’s revenues are deposited under the supervision of the Central Bank.”
He added, “The region refuses to hand over the revenues to Baghdad and deposit them in the account, and wants to establish a private bank that will be supervised by Erbil.” He pointed out that “the political forces agree to hand over the revenues of Erbil to Baghdad, with the exception of the Kurds, who refuse to do so.”
In another matter, Al-Zaman newspaper recalled the memory of the fall of the city of Mosul in the hands of the terrorist organization ISIS.
In this regard, it said: “Despite the succession of years since the tenth of June of 2014, its events and details are still entrenched in the memory of everyone who lived in the city of Mosul, especially in the five days preceding this date, specifically on the fifth of the aforementioned month, when a ban was announced in the city center. Sudden roaming confused everyone, especially middle school students who were taking their second exam on this day, along with hundreds of employees and millions of earners who went either to their work or to the markets in order to practice their day.
It added: “The announcement of the ban was a catastrophe that befell everyone, and the streets seemed crowded with people, and they were confused walking kilometers and did not know what the city would face in light of a media blackout and ambiguity surrounding the sudden ban announcement. In the following days, queues of people seemed to cross the right side on foot, while the left side was cut off from running any vehicle except for the security vehicles, and the city was going through a suffocating gasoline crisis at the time, as usual, without any solutions.
It pointed out: “The back streets were defined by the movement of civilian cars that were carrying the citizens of the right side to the nearest point in order to continue their movement and their search for a safe haven, since the armed confrontations started from this side until the disaster of the Mosul Hotel occurred when the military units stationed in it to repel the attacks of the elements that found that its last option was to direct a truck laden with explosives towards the last wall to shake it and shake its pillars, so it represented the final blow that opened the window of pain and sorrow for the people of the city.
The newspaper continued: “The memory is full of later scenes of deserted barracks and military clothes abandoned in the following days, along with traces of blood and wrecked cars at most of the main intersections of the city. Behind every barracks or wrecked car there was a sad story that was not archived by pens and the memory did not stop there to pick up the last of these painful stories.
Source: National Iraqi News Agency