Parliamentary oversight of budget implementation in Iraq

Abstract

State finances play an important and vital role in the lives of nations and peoples. There is no doubt that it deserves to be protected and preserved from any attack or waste in various ways and means to preserve the state’s resources and spend them in the correct direction of spending according to the rules of the budget. From here was born the idea of budget control in all its forms. At the forefront is the legislative authority’s oversight of the actions of the executive authority, which is in the process of implementing the rules of the budget document.
Parliament performs its oversight role over the budget through various means and tools at its disposal, through its deputies and committees formed by it directly or through assignment, cooperation and coordination with other oversight agencies and bodies, which provide the Council with various information and data revealing the deviations and practices committed by the government when implementing the budget.
The oversight roles exercised by Parliament in its oversight of the budget also vary from previous oversight, represented by approving and approving the draft budget, to contemporary oversight that keeps pace with disbursement and revenue collection operations. Then there is subsequent oversight that specializes in following up on the correctness of implementation, and evaluating the activity of the agencies responsible for spending or collecting revenues by approving and approving the final accounts. Thus, these forms or stages that Parliament’s budget oversight cycle passes through give great importance, enhancing their roles and making them one of the most reliable types of oversight. It is required in all countries, whether those that formed the cradle of this oversight, such as England and France, or those from which this practice and experience was taken, such as Egypt and Iraq, so that the legislative apparatus in them plays its role in tracking the actions of its executive counterpart, exposing violations and aspects of government negligence, working to evaluate the level of its activity, and developing solutions. Addressing his mistakes and negatives and preventing them from falling into them in the future.
There is no doubt that the complexity of the tasks and functions of the state in the modern era, the sensitivity of the relationship between the legislative and executive authorities, as well as the lack of experience and specialization, and the dominance of partisan tendencies and narrow personal interests, have created difficulties and obstacles that have cast a shadow on the oversight work carried out by Parliament in all countries, most notably Iraq. This leads us to ask about the solutions proposed for the problems of parliamentary oversight of the budget, and what roles Parliament can exercise to enhance its position within the state authorities. Is parliamentary oversight sufficient to keep state funds safe and free from waste? There is another important question that arises: Is there cooperation and coordination between the various government agencies concerned with implementing the budget? And also other oversight bodies, especially those that are independent from a practical and realistic standpoint, with Parliament, to achieve integration in roles and tasks, especially in Iraq, in order to eliminate or reduce the scourges of waste and loss of Iraqi funds and reduce the high rates of financial and administrative corruption that have reached dangerous levels in this country? .