Shafaq News / The Parliamentary Finance Committee revealed today, Thursday, the sum of borrowed funds the government needs in order to secure the employee's salaries and address the fiscal deficit of 2020.
"The finance and planning ministers informed us during the committee meeting, yesterday, that the government needs 5 billion dollars of external borrowing and 40 trillion dinars of internal borrowing (the equivalent of about $ 38 billion)", The head of the Parliamentary Finance Committee, Ahmed Al-Saffar, told Shafaq News agency. Adding that internal borrowing will be from Al-Rafidain, Al-Rashid and Al-Akari banks, as well as the central bank.

Al-Saffar said that, "The consent to borrowing is conditional", noting that it obliges the government to provide, within 60 days, a reform paper regarding the draft law of the general budget. He also said that, "the deduction of the salaries of employees and retirees is not a solution; resorting to borrowing is the best solution to overcome the financial crisis, secure salaries and fill the gap in the public budget".

The Parliamentary Finance Committee revealed earlier, the "unprecedented" amount of deficit in the country's general budget for the current year 2020, estimated at 69 trillion Iraqi dinars.

It is noteworthy that submitting the federal budget, by the government, to the Iraqi parliament has been delayed due to the continuous protests since last October; This led to the resignation of the previous government headed by Adel Abdul-Mahdi and its transformation into a caretaker government that cannot submit a budget.