Parliament proposes amendments to the 2010 budget

BAGHDAD / IraqiNews.com: The Iraqi Parliament’s financial committee proposed amendments to the federal budget of 2010 to the Iraqi government. “The amendments include allocated funds to Parliament and Supreme Judicial Council,” Lawmaker Alaa al-Saadon, the committee’s head, told IraqiNews.com news agency on Wednesday. She said that the Parliament has the right to specify its budget, and the one of Supreme Judicial Council. On Jan. 8, a member of the Iraqi Parliament’s financial committee called on the political blocs not to delay the federal budget of 2010. Lawmaker Sami al-Atroushi criticized the Iraqi central government for not providing the House of Representatives with the final auditing of the four previous years, according to a release issued by his office. He said that the delayed approval of the budget would negatively affect them during election, and that there are many problems with the budget that the parliament was supposed to deal with. Al-Atroushi said that the Parliament has never been able to know how much money the government really has had, and that some blocs have delayed the approval of the 2010 budget for purely political reasons. He explained that it is meaningless to be afraid that the government may use the 2010 budget to fund electoral propaganda. MH (S)/SR 2