KTFA:

Samson:  More than 60 teams follow up on the projects of the White Paper.. This is what a government advisor revealed

6th August, 2021

Advisor to the Prime Minister, Executive Director of the Reform Cell, Alaa Abdul-Hussein Al-Saadi, confirmed today, Friday, that all projects of the White Paper will be launched at one pace according to the specified time limits, while pointing out that 64 teams have been formed to follow up on the implementation of projects.

Al-Saadi said, to the official news agency, that "the governance mechanisms for implementing the white paper include time ranges that divide projects into programs. and objectives contained in the white paper.

On the most prominent challenges facing reform efforts in the field of combating financial and administrative corruption, and in response to those concerned and those opposed to the White Paper projects, Al-Saadi explained, “Any change that occurs is always accompanied by opponents, and there is a kind of fear and opposition, but the government’s goal is to deliver a message aimed at improving performance.” The government in the field of financial management, the economy in general, and the implementation of projects, which leads to simplifying procedures for investors and the general public, and thus eliminating red tape, which will subsequently lead to the elimination of corruption.

He stressed, "The government's priorities in implementing projects are many and large, and all programs will be launched at one pace according to the specified timescales," noting that "the white paper includes 64 projects, and 64 teams have been formed so that there is a team for each project that is launched according to the pre-established plan."

He pointed out that "the Reform Department cell began its follow-up to the implementation of the white paper by communicating with all the main and supportive executive bodies for the implementation of projects, facilitating the procedures for the implementation process and preparing them, and making the various parties understand the mechanisms for their implementation," noting that "the preparation process will be relatively long, but it is important for proper implementation." for programmes.

On August 2, the Prime Minister, Mustafa Al-Kazemi, announced the start of implementing the administrative and executive mechanisms of the economic reform plan within the white paper.

LINK

Osmosis:  Sounds like a whole lotta implementing going on out there.........IMO

Samson:  The dissolution of the Iraqi parliament on August 10. This is what Article 64 of the Constitution stipulates

6th August, 2021

The Commission for Human Rights revealed, on Friday, an article in the constitution that stipulates the dissolution of the Iraqi parliament on August 10.

A member of the commission, Ali al-Bayati, said on Twitter, "Article 64 / second of the constitution calls on the President of the Republic, upon dissolving the House of Representatives, to hold general elections in the country within a maximum period of 60 days from the date of the dissolution."
 
The member of the commission added: "According to this article, and in respect of the constitution, Parliament must be dissolved on the current 10th of August. Otherwise, the presence of unconstitutional preludes to the elections makes the result clear."    LINK

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Samson:  Iraq will suspend official working hours next Monday

6th August, 2021

The relevant authorities in Iraq announced, on Friday, the suspension of official working hours next Monday, on the occasion of the first of the holy month of Muharram.  LINK

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Samson:  10 votes to complete the enactment of a US law to abolish the use of military force in Iraq

6th August, 2021

Ten Republican senators signed a bipartisan bill repealing the 1991 and 2002 authorizations for the use of military force in Iraq.

The new legislation, led by Senators Todd Young and Tim Kaine, revokes both the 2002 Iraq War and 1991 Gulf War permits, the Wall Street Journal reported Thursday.

The move is the latest sign that lawmakers from both parties are gaining momentum in their efforts to reassert Congress' constitutional authority to declare war.

At least 60 votes

Passing the legislation requires at least 60 votes in the 100-member Senate, which means at least 10 Republican votes are needed to join all 50 Democrats for the legislation to succeed.

On Wednesday, the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee voted to cancel two authorizations that give open approval to the use of military force in Iraq. It is noteworthy that the Biden administration revealed, weeks ago, that it supports efforts in Congress to repeal the authorization for the use of military force, issued in 2002, which reinforces lawmakers’ efforts to withdraw the authority to declare war from the White House.   LINK

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Samson:  The Iraqi economy is in the arms of the black box?!

5th August, 2021 by Abdul Jabbar Nouri

A short introduction, just to remind you: {The global economic system was exposed to three influential shocks, whose outcomes and negative repercussions took comprehensive dimensions in the geography of the European continent and many countries of the Arab and African East, which are:

The Second Gulf War

The 9/11 attacks

Corona virus outbreak

The IMF-International Monetray Fund, more than a hundred international organizations, including (Hugh from Rights Watch) announced in a statement published at the beginning of this year:{The International Monetary Fund should reconsider its conditions in the time of Corona}, and because it has become heavy on developing and poor countries, which are difficult for them even to buy vaccines for the virus, and because its conditions have an intrinsic relationship in drawing the social and economic scenes in alleviating the exacerbation of poverty and inequality of rights

The social and economic ones for those peoples, including the Iraqi people, whose social and economic consequences I am about to mention in this article, and I mention that the IMF is one of the fiercest economic institutions in the world that intersects with the application of neo-liberal policies by exploiting the passage of countries in economic crises to lend them money for rescue provided that dictates are applied The International Monetary Fund is unfair and arbitrary, but with this and that the International Monetary Fund can be considered (immediate palliatives to exacerbate crises).

Here, I recall the popular proverb (what drives you to bitter other than it), which is to resort to selling crude oil and its negative future outputs in transforming Iraq into a rentier state with a single economy, and submitting to the capabilities of oil prices subject to the fluctuations of the OPEC market and the obsession of Saudi Arabia and Russia, which are the two main sources in the world. To nightmares that disturb the budgets in Iraq in particular, so he rushes to the International Monetary Fund, or say: The International Black Box!!!???

Estimates indicate that Iraq possesses the second largest oil reserves in the world, and the estimated number is (143) billion barrels, according to recent geological surveys. The seventies of the last century were years of economic prosperity in modern infrastructure and good education and health systems. Destructive, absurd wars, subject to international sanctions, and an unjust, destructive, and stifling economic embargo. The Iraqi people paid their heavy bill, in which they lost their economic and even moral system, and hindered their progress (extracts from a programmatic memorandum issued by the Executive Board of the International Monetary Fund 2010).

And here is the horrific disaster when Iraq is forced to the International Monetary Fund or, excuse me, (the black box) in mortgaging future generations of heavy debts due to the financial deficit, which is estimated at (130) billion dollars.

Moreover, Iraq lacks the Sovereign Fund, which is a saving fund owned by the state as an element of sustainability in providing cash, and it is one of the state’s surpluses for investment. It is a fund that is not new, but rather used by some Gulf countries such as Qatar and Kuwait. Do we have such a positive and utilitarian phenomenon?! Excess money is subject to theft and looting!! And when the government arrives today, unable to pay the salaries of employees, it could have established the Sovereign Fund and put an end to the rampant corruption in all parts of government institutions.

The International Monetary Fund is a specialized agency of the United Nations system, established by an international treaty in 1944 to work to enhance the safety of the global economy. It includes encouraging international cooperation in the monetary field, facilitating international trade, stabilizing the exchange rate and strengthening confidence among international banks, and the sources of its funds from the contributions of those countries in the form of profit-benefiting shares of interest rates added on international loans (International Monetary Fund official website - in Arabic, adapted) .

Iraq in the arms of this black box / The meeting of experts of the International Monetary Fund missions and the Iraqi authorities was in the Jordanian capital Amman on November 17 to 21, 2017, and the goal of these dialogue meetings for more than a week was to reach the so-called (internationally) credit readiness (which gave the government a boost in Prepare for the preparation of the 2018 budget to be parallel and in line with the credit readiness, which is the key to the satisfaction of the International Monetary Fund, and the International Monetary Fund’s rejection of the federal financial budget for the year 2018, which the Iraqi Council of Representatives voted to pass recently, and the Fund’s responses to the rejection are:

1- Iraq is obligated to implement a set of conditions, including canceling jobs, and not adding financial burdens to the budget.

2- The Fund’s refusal to include the government in the budget by decisions to confirm contracts and return their contracts, and one of the repercussions of slavery is the harshness of alienating conditions for the Fund is its blatant interference in some matters of sovereignty by applying international pressure. 2018 stipulated that the government pay 10 trillion dinars to the regional government to relieve its financial hardship and dismantle the Kurdish street demonstrations demanding their rights to their monthly salaries cut for a long time under the pretext of compulsory savings.

Arbitrary terms of the International Monetary Fund?!

And the budget deficit is what pushed Iraq into the arms of the International Monetary Fund and succumb to its arbitrary and painful conditions under the pretext of the drop in the price of a barrel of crude oil to less than 40 dollars since 2011 and subsequent years. The Fund agreed to lend Iraq 4-5 billion dollars over a period of three years and with these conditions:

- Paying all overdue dues to foreign oil companies operating in Iraq since 2016. 2- The loan period is over three years.

It includes the terms of economic reforms in Iraq, which include an increase in taxes, customs fees, electricity fees and banking supervision in the fight against administrative and financial corruption and money laundering.

The government was put under pressure from these arbitrary conditions and tended to austerity and the imposition of taxes that inflame prices and lead to chaos and social and economic confusion.

- Reducing the subsidy for goods that were subsidized in large proportions, which was one of the consequences of this condition is the harassment of the citizen’s bread, so he lifted the subsidy on bakeries, where it reached 100% instead of taking four baskets per thousand Iraqi dinars, he got only two (in 2018). 7- Liberalizing the prices of fuels of all kinds: gasoline, white and black oil, and liquid gas. 

8- Increasing the prices of civil services, foremost of which are water, electricity and communications, in preparation for their complete liberalization, selling state assets, and implementing the privatization program in most service fields, such as privatizing electricity, water and sewage sewage. 9- Imposing a value-added tax of 15% on the prices of goods and services. 10 - Putting pressure on the civil service law, through which hundreds of thousands of employees in the state's administrative apparatus are dispensed with.

Floating the local currency*: Instead of advising on addressing the causes that led to the budget deficit, he resorts to the most insidious way, which is the floating of the local currency, or the treatment of the single-rental economy that depends on selling oil by 97%, without providing an extensive study or encouraging

 He requested those development studies in the advancement of economic sectors such as agriculture, industry and tourism, and we did not find a sincere plan with the International Monetary Fund to increase the production of the country’s exports that suffer from financial and economic problems and crises, and calculate the country’s foreign exchange earnings, and we did not see a plan to fight corruption, poverty and unemployment, and we did not hear from The owners of the Fund’s decision about the danger of not separating the state budget and personal bank balances in foreign banks, and did not touch on the disasters and ploys of the Central Bank in the process of “currency sale auction”

Exposed from under the cloak of the owners of private banks and some of the government in public laundering of billions and the extraction of hard currency, even at the expense of its cash cover for the assets of the Central Bank.

And that this inability, waste of public money, and randomness in economic programs cannot be attached to the International Fund’s peg as much as the necessity imposes real and real disclosure in the wrong government policies and mismanagement that prompted the government to resort to the International Monetary Fund, and the ISIS war inevitably seems to be a war of attrition that burned the dry and green. With terrifying billions figures, for the year 2011 and 2013, the price of a barrel fell to less than $40, and the reason is inevitably due to the government’s setbacks in financial mismanagement and the absence of planning. It is not easy, but it will take long and lean years.

Causes of indebtedness and indebtedness:

Import dependency, rentier economy, manipulation of the fate of cash reserves, absence of central tax and customs controls on imported goods, non-submission of border crossings and some airports to the authority of the government, lack of contribution of the industrial and agricultural sectors in the development process, the contribution of industry may be 1% and agriculture 3% The absence of the investment factor in the country in general, bureaucracy, nepotism, nepotism, administrative and financial corruption, the rise in monetary inflation indicators due to economic depression, unemployment and poverty, the heavy legacy of the former regime in an exhausted economy mired in absurd wars and heavy debts to the neighbor Kuwait, which brought Iraq under Chapter VII that black hole The one who swallowed billions of the money of the Iraqi people, who has no elegance or camel, and the absence of national loyalty and its rent to bloc, factional and partisan loyalty, which was the victim of the Iraqi economy, which constitutes a perpetuation of crises for the Iraqi citizen.

A "brief" description of the miserable state of the Iraqi economy for a decade and a half, for lean years?!

The percentage of dumping in the market system reached 95%, which completely paralyzed the internal industries of the private and public sectors, and the open market policy led to flooding Iraq with cheap and vulgar luxury goods, and perhaps the great disaster would be carcinogenic and polluting, as long as the consumer lacks the market culture and its followers are obsessive with purchasing.

- Decrease in foreign exchange for the assets of the Central Bank, which is a cover for the local currency.

- The country is a rentier state and remains hostage to natural rent, and the economic activities contributing to the budget income disappear, and one of the disadvantages of the rentier economy is that the state possesses surpluses of capital. The economic and social system has developed, and one of the negative aspects of the rentier economy is that it pumps out huge money and the government uses it (as a drug) to absorb the anger of the street, while its other face leads to the encouragement of imports and the expulsion of the hard currency that governments obtained from oil, and the rentier state is exposed to economic turmoil as long as it is connected in place to the market global, and a good example:  The drop in the price of a barrel of crude oil globally from 110 dollars per barrel to less than 41 dollars, and the negatives of the unilateral economy were not political, economic and social, but included the (ethics) of work in the spread of dependence and inflation of the administrative system framed by the bureaucracy and most likely the assumption of hereditary dictatorships as is the case in countries Khalij for family control over wealth.

- The common and daily phenomenon of money laundering in the currency auction of the Central Bank, that the term is a modern alternative to the hidden economy, black economies or shadow economies, these illegal money gained from bribery, embezzlement, commercial fraud, counterfeiting money and rewards for espionage activities, theft, looting public money, facilitating prostitution and drug smuggling Smuggling oil, smuggling antiquities, smuggling children, trafficking in human organs, gambling club profits, manufacturing narcotic plants, kidnapping and detaining people, are mixed with legitimate funds to hide their forbidden source and get out of legal accountability after shadowing the security authorities.

Finally/there is no real solution or magic wand in tackling the problem of this clinically ill economy because it is all a moral issue

Unfortunately, this moral system has been ruined by the arrogant and aggressive American occupier, and these societal and shaky economic phenomena that are subject today to a high-speed digital electronic system in the communication of those Iraqi, regional and international mafias within a spider network with the help of the lame American democracy should not be underestimated. : That these terrifying billionaire mafias are protected by (some) political decision makers or what they call the brutes of power ----!!!??? And its disastrous outcomes (economic randomness and unthoughtful and unprogrammed planning).

And that the development of the Iraqi economy in all its productive and service sectors is contingent on dismantling the unilateral or rentier economy, and spreading a culture of loyalty to the homeland, not to factional and mass affiliation, in addition to oversight and governance!!! The neglect of all the governments that have ruled Iraq since its founding in 1921 and even the governments of today in neglecting (natural gas) and leaving it burning like eternal fire, and they did not have a conscience to invest in it at the time to treat the single economy and change the situation of the people, and here the World Bank announced in July 2021

{Iraq is the worst country in burning natural gas in the world after Russia}!!!???.

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* Floating the local currency: is to make the exchange rate free from the authority of the state and the central bank, and it is decided automatically in the currency market through the mechanism of supply and demand, and it is the most tragic condition when the money is at the mercy of whales of greedy speculators, which will negatively affect the value of monetary assets in The central bank and the catastrophic result of poverty, unemployment and outrageous prices.    LINK