The Parliament convenes to vote upon the budget bill

Shafaq News/ The Iraqi Parliament Speaker, Muhammad al-Halbousi, commenced the session dedicated to voting the 2021 Federal Budget bill and the Parliament dissolution resolution, with 215 MPs on the attendance record.

A parliamentary source reported that the speaker of the parliament, Mohamed Al-Halbousi, left the parliament’s hall due to a lack of quorum for the voting session on the budget bill. 

The source told Shafaq News Agency that the quorum for today’s session has not yet completed, as the number of MPs present in the hall did exceed 150, which made the speaker leave without clarifying whether he left protesting the lack of quorum, to invite the MPs into the hall, or for another reason. 

Furthermore, another parliamentary source revealed earlier today that the draft for the 2021 budget was distributed to the MPS, and the speaker reread the names of the MPs to register the attendance and make sure of the completion of the quorum to start the session and vote on the bill and the decision to dissolve the parliament. 

He added that, until now, and even after distributing the budget draft to the MPs, there are still disagreements over some of its items, indicating that there are blocs and MPs who intend to boycott the session, including the State of Law Coalition and the National Approach bloc.

 The Parliament's Presidium announced, yesterday,  that the Budget Bill and the dissolution of the council of Representatives will be voted upon in the same session on Wednesday, 1pm.