Iraq’s Finance Ministry has transferred only around 16.5 percent of the budgeted project allocations to the country’s governorates in the first quarter of 2024, according to a well-known Iraqi financial expert.

The 2024 capital expenditure approved as part of the 2023-2025 budget passed in mid 2023 is estimated at around 6 trillion Iraqi dinars ($4.58 billion), Nabil Al-Marsumi said in a Facebook post on Saturday.

But the governorates received only about IQD992.7 billion ($758 million) in the first quarter of 2024 or 16.5 percent of the total allocations, he added.

Marsumi said the lower allocations are because the 2024 budget is yet to be passed by the Parliament although it has been sent by the cabinet weeks ago.

His figures showed Baghdad got the largest allocations of around IQD154.5 billion ($118 million) in the first quarter.

(Writing by Nadim Kawach; Editing by Anoop Menon)

(anoop.menon@lseg.com)

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