Prime Minister Muhammad Al-Sudani confirmed today, Saturday, that the focus has been on the five priorities of the government program, represented in confronting unemployment, addressing poverty, combating financial and administrative corruption, providing services, and economic reform.
Al-Sudani said in the press interview on the semi-annual report of the government program: “We put before our people, public opinion, and the legislative and constitutional authorities a summary of the first semi-annual report on the performance and progress of the government ministries and institutions’ implementation of the ministerial program that was approved on December 12 of the year 2022.
He continued: “The program enjoyed continuous follow-up from the approval session until the last session in which this report was approved on June 20,” adding that “this work was accomplished without a budget, and we worked with the available resources in the ministries and governorates and according to the government’s powers.”
He explained that the focus was on the five priorities of the government program, represented in facing unemployment, addressing poverty, combating financial and administrative corruption, providing services, and economic reform, adding that the priority is to accelerate the completion of lagging projects that have been hampered for years, due to mismanagement, lack of allocations, or because of corruption.
He said, the fifth round of licensing has been launched, to invest in the field of oil and gas, and we announced the sixth complementary round, to invest gas wealth, and we have completed about 25 health institutions like hospitals and specialized centers, as well as about 20 health centers and clinics.
He added: “We have embarked on a major rehabilitation campaign to maintain a number of hospitals in Baghdad and the provinces, and we have previously opened Al-Kadhimiya Hospital, Ibn Al-Baladi Hospital and the Children’s Hospital after their rehabilitation.
He continued, “We have completed 414 schools, distributed among several governorates, and we have begun to rehabilitate 300 other school buildings, and work is continuing to build 2,000 schools.
He pointed out, to operating of the Karbala refinery with a capacity of 140,000 barrels per day, and it will provide Iraq with about 3 billion dollars that were going to import oil derivatives, and to proceed with the project to expand Shinafia refinery in Diwaniyah, adding that the digital transformation project has been completed for the General Company for Communications and Informatics, and the experimental operation of the project to repel cyber-attacks has been completed, and the completion of the Olympic Port Stadium in Basra and its inauguration in the Gulf Championship (25).
He explained that in the services file, we started experimenting with service and engineering effort in un-served areas, and areas outside the urban planning of cities in Baghdad and the provinces, and we directed the effort to complete municipal services, open streets, modernize the electrical network, rehabilitate schools in residential neighborhoods, prepare basic designs for new cities, and advertise for 5 cities in Baghdad and the provinces, it will be available to middle and low-income groups and poor groups.
He pointed out that 35 projects have been launched to reduce traffic congestion, including overpasses and bridges, the development of intersections and squares, and the settlement of projects at the entrances to the capital.
He also referred to the direct digital transformation and automation of citizens’ transactions in government departments to close the outlets of corruption, and the launch of the National Strategy for Education 2022-2031 to correct the course of the education file.
He said: “We signed contracts with international companies (Siemens and General Electric) for long-term maintenance over a period of 5 years, saving 30% of costs, completing 25 secondary stations in the transportation sector, 129 secondary stations in the distribution sector, and extending 311 km of feeders (11 , and 33 KV), and 923 km of electric transmission lines, which contributed to bringing the national production of electric energy to 26,000 megawatts.
He stressed, we have carried out comprehensive maintenance operations and completed the cooling system for the stations, which have provided an additional 700 megawatts, which included 40 stations throughout Iraq, adding that production stations, including the Salah al-Din station, add 630 megawatts, and the completion of 26 executive procedures in the electricity sector, in cycle projects.
He explained that, in the field of combating poverty, the largest social research campaign was launched targeting two million families, the number of families whose research was completed was 1.4 million families, and cash subsidies were delivered to approximately 492 thousand families, and the expansion of coverage with the salary of a full-time assistant and an increase in their salaries, with the completion and inclusion of 430 thousand disabled people with the salary, and the launch of the electronic service for groups benefiting from social protection, and the recovery of 150 billion dinars from those who transgressed on the protection network.
He continued, “The food basket was distributed to 5.871 million of those covered by protection, 5 food baskets were distributed, and the sixth is being distributed among them, 42,000 displaced families were included in social protection, tuition fees were reduced for students covered by social care in public universities for evening studies and private universities, support for small projects and the launch of 100 loans within those covered by social care
He added, in the field of addressing unemployment and providing job opportunities, more than 600,000 holders of postgraduate degrees, graduates, firsts, contracts, lecturers, and daily wages have been redressed, and 65,000 new workers in the private sector have been included in social security.
He stressed, “We focused on controlling the file of foreign workers in Iraq, through a number of decisions.”
He referred to the sponsorship of small and medium enterprises, the launch of Riyada initiative for development and employment, which is concerned with supporting groups of students and youth, and empowering them, and the registration of more than 180,000 applications for participation, we target 100,000 of them in rapid courses and the preparation of loans for them.
He also pointed out, to raise the capital of donor banks for loans generating projects.
In the context of confronting financial and administrative corruption, he explained that the Supreme Anti-Corruption Commission and the supportive security team were formed to pursue the senior corrupt, and to work in accordance with legal constitutional procedures that do not involve jurisprudence by officials, as happened in the past and left negative effects on the anti-corruption process, and we directed all ministries by reviewing large previous contracts and subjecting them to financial and legal scrutiny, and we assured the ministers and the minister’s entourage that office managers should not be from partisan and political parties, adding contracts with solid international companies for financial auditing, and the completion of (the national anti-corruption strategy).
He continued, making the issue of cooperation in recovering wanted persons and smuggled funds a basis in foreign relations, and we were able to dismantle and seize a large oil smuggling network, in which there were elements of security services that were charged with protecting crude oil transport lines and refineries.
He stressed the application of the single window system in registering companies, the formation of a specialized audit committee to review the commissions collected by all electronic payment companies, follow-up on money laundering and terrorist financing, and the approval of the National Assessment of Money Laundering Risks report.
He referred to the governance of government departments, especially those of a service nature to reduce friction between auditors and state employees, and to establish a unified treasury account to control funds in the state.
He stressed that huge amounts of looted money have been recovered in the case of theft of tax secretariats, and this file is subject to daily follow-up by the government.
He explained, and in the field of administrative reform, we have established from the first day mechanisms for follow-up and evaluation of general managers, agents and consultants, leading to the evaluation of ministers.
He said that economic reform is one of the ruling priorities in light of the high spending, and the continuation of oil as the only source of financing the budget, so we went towards activating the industrial and agricultural sectors, adding that we took a number of measures to revive the industrial sector, and the investment opportunities available in Iraq in the industrial field were announced work to complete the rehabilitation of the iron and steel plant in Basra, one of the strategic projects that will take place this year, in addition to working on completing the industrial cities.
He added, “We witnessed the most successful agricultural season in the history of Iraq, in which we were able to achieve self-sufficiency, and we exceeded 4.5 million tons of grain marketing, and we were able to pay farmers’ dues within a period ranging from 24 to 72 hours of marketing their crops.”
He continued, “We faced the fluctuations of the dollar exchange rate, and the entitlement that was not implemented during the previous governments, despite the agreement with the US Federal Bank, and more than 85% of our trade is conducted through the electronic platform and complies with international standards, and we implemented a comprehensive system to automate customs for the first time through self-efforts.”
He pointed out, to the approval of the Iraq Fund for Development, in the three-year budget to harmonize the budget with the government’s priorities, the adoption of productive economic diplomacy in Iraq’s relations with the world, and the launch of the promising (development road) project, which will bring together all the countries of the region, maintain stability, and serve all development projects.
He stressed the continuation of striking the remnants of terrorism, and the remarkable performance of the security services against the drug trade.
He also stressed the completion of the national strategy for Iraqi women 2023-2030, and the success in holding the 25th Gulf Championship.
Source: National Iraqi News Agency