Iraq's parliament continued debating a draft bill on Tuesday that allows the caretaker government to unlock billions of dollars to meet the country's urgent spending needs.
Political wrangling over the formation of a new government — more than seven months since Iraq held elections on October 10 — has led to financial chaos, delaying the approval of the federal budget, limiting government spending and affecting businesses.
With the absence of the budget, the government can only spend a 12th of the previous year’s budget amount each month mainly on salaries but not for new projects.
Last year's budget was 130 trillion Iraqi dinars ($89.65 billion), with an estimated deficit of 28.7tn dinars.
The plan originally set aside 27tn Iraqi dinars, but this is likely to be reduced amid calls from some parties to restrict spending only to essential needs.
The bill calls for the allocation of 8tn Iraqi dinars ($5.5bn) to the Ministry of Trade to buy wheat from local farmers and international suppliers and to keep the government-run food ration programme afloat.
It also sets aside 10tn Iraqi dinars ($6.85bn) for development projects across the country as well as 3tn dinars ($2.05bn) for the Electricity Ministry to buy gas from Iran to supply power to homes.
October's election was the fifth parliamentary vote for a full-term government since the 2003 US-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein. It came in response to one of the core demands of a nationwide pro-reform protest movement that erupted in 2019.
Despite emerging a clear winner in the October elections, the Sadrist bloc led by Shiite cleric Moqtada Al Sadr has failed to form a government.
It won 73 of the 329 seats in parliament and teamed up with winners among Sunni and Kurdish political parties in an attempt to form a majority government, excluding Iran-backed parties.
This has come as a setback for the Iran-backed Co-ordination Framework, which had been aiming to form the government.
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Children who witnessed blood bath want to help others
Aged just 11, Khulood Al Najjar’s daughter, Nora, bravely attempted to fight off Philip Spence. Her finger was injured when she put her hand in between the claw hammer and her mother’s head.
As a vital witness, she was forced to relive the ordeal by police who needed to identify the attacker and ensure he was found guilty.
Now aged 16, Nora has decided she wants to dedicate her career to helping other victims of crime.
“It was very horrible for her. She saw her mum, dying, just next to her eyes. But now she just wants to go forward,” said Khulood, speaking about how her eldest daughter was dealing with the trauma of the incident five years ago. “She is saying, 'mama, I want to be a lawyer, I want to help people achieve justice'.”
Khulood’s youngest daughter, Fatima, was seven at the time of the attack and attempted to help paramedics responding to the incident.
“Now she wants to be a maxillofacial doctor,” Khulood said. “She said to me ‘it is because a maxillofacial doctor returned your face, mama’. Now she wants to help people see themselves in the mirror again.”
Khulood’s son, Saeed, was nine in 2014 and slept through the attack. While he did not witness the trauma, this made it more difficult for him to understand what had happened. He has ambitions to become an engineer.
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