Constitutional and legal organization of the public budget in Iraq (a comparative study with Lebanon)

The general budget of the State of Iraq is based and what its four phases go through, starting with preparation, implementation and control over it, on several legislations, including: Law of Financial Management and Public Debt No. (95) for the year 2004, amended. In light of this, it was found that the general budget cycle faces several failures, some of which are caused by Deficiencies in the approved legislation, which affects in one way or another on the general budget, and others result from non-compliance with the legislation, which negatively affects the stages the general budget is going through, which calls for studying it and drawing attention to it and submitting proposals that contribute to addressing this matter. In order to improve the reality of the general budget, and accordingly, the current research is based on the following two hypotheses: The first hypothesis: that the problem of the general budget is primarily due to a deficiency in the Iraqi legislation regulating the public budget. The second hypothesis: that the problem of the general budget results from the imbalance resulting from the failure to implement the Iraqi legislation related to the public budget correctly when completing the stages that the general budget is going through.

The study concluded that the political and economic changes that Iraq has experienced since the establishment of the state of Iraq in 1921 until now have played a major role in bringing about changes in the legislative framework that governs the general budget cycle, and in the absence of the legal framework on which it depends in the completion of the various stages related to the investment budget. The amended Financial Management and Public Debt Law No. 95 of 2004 did not give sufficient attention to the investment budget and what is related to all the phases of the investment budget cycle, similar to the operational budget.

The adoption of the method of balancing items in preparing the general budget has caused the absence of the objectives on which the process of preparing and approving the general budget is based, which was reflected in the expansion of the volume of public expenditures and their increase from year to year, especially operational expenditures, and this was confirmed in the federal general budget for the last years that remained Without clear and specific goals to be approved and reported within the annual general budget law, as it was reflected in the oversight of the public budget, which ignored the interest in monitoring the extent of achieving goals.