Iraq’s 2025 budget won’t reach parliament in next two months

Shafaq News/ Iraq’s government is unlikely to submit the 2025 budget tables to parliament within the next two months, a senior lawmaker said on Wednesday.

Ikhlas al-Dulaimi, deputy head of the Parliamentary Finance Committee, told Shafaq News that the Finance Ministry had yet to send the budget tables to the cabinet, despite a legal requirement to do so by October 2024 for approval before the new fiscal year.

"The total budget amounts to 216 trillion dinars (about $165B), while actual expenditures are estimated at around 160 trillion dinars (about $122,)" al-Dulaimi said, ruling out the possibility of sending the tables to parliament soon, which could push the approval process into Iraq’s election period.

In February, Iraq’s parliament passed the first amendment to the federal general budget law for the fiscal years 2023–2025, originally enacted as Law No. 13 of 2023.