DPM SALIH ON BUDGET EXECUTION AND COMPACT

C O N F I D E N T I A L BAGHDAD 001474

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 04/30/2017
TAGS: ECON EFIN PREL IZ
SUBJECT: DPM SALIH ON BUDGET EXECUTION AND COMPACT
PREPERATIONS

REF: A. BAGHDAD 1464

B. BAGHDAD 843

Classified By: Economic Minister-Counselor Daniel Weygandt for reasons
1.4 (b) and (d).


1. (C) In a meeting with Economic Counselor and Treasury
Attache on April 30, Deputy Prime Minister Barham Salih
discussed ongoing progress and challenges in improving GOI
budget execution, and final preparations for the
International Compact with Iraq launch on May 3. DPM Salih
said that the GOI is making progress on budget execution
through weekly task force meetings and process reviews at the
Council of Ministers, noting that the next review at the COM
would be next week. Treasury Attache said that the Iraqi
Budget Execution conference of March 7 was an excellent basis
for further work (ref B). While acknowledging the lack of
timely data, DPM Salih believes that execution was improving
in several ministries, although the Ministry of Oil was still
problematic. "It has been useful to confront the Minister of
Oil on the ministry's poor performance during CoM meetings,"
DPM Salih said. While he does not expect most ministries to
execute 37.5% of their budget by June, DPM Salih thinks that
the reallocation mechanism of the 2007 Budget Law is an
important incentive for ministers. He also said that he was
working to build a professional staff within his office to
monitor GOI budget execution.


2. (C) DPM Salih said he was looking forward to the launch
of the International Compact with Iraq (ICI). EconCouns
encouraged him to make sure that the importance of the ICI
was not lost when attention turned to the Neighbors'
Conference on the following day. DPM Salih also agreed to
arrange for an officially signed letter indicating Iraq's
intention to settle its arrears with the Arab Fund for
Economic and Social Development (ref B).
CROCKER