Provinces to Manage More of Own Oil Wealth?

Sulaiti said that he has information “from private sources that the State of Law Coalition is preparing to submit a request to the (Iraqi) Federal Court to quash the second amendment of the amended provinces Law No. 21 for 2008.” He explained,  “The new amendment activated constitutional (articles) on administrative decentralization, bestowed broad constitutional powers to local governments, and approved an unprecedented increase of financial allocations, which would alleviate the suffering of the citizens in the provinces.”

Hakim’s bloc believes that the previous government of Basra “was negligent with the central government on the right to take part in the management of oil fields.”

Nevertheless, Latif Tamimi, a member of the oil-rich province of Maysan’s council and of the Maliki bloc, said that the provinces should take advantage of this amendment, in terms of coordinating with the central government and the Council of Representatives, and not to turn against them.

In a statement to Al-Monitor, Tamimi said.  “The recent amendment of the provincial councils’ law is to the advantage of the oil provinces.”

Tamimi, a leading figure in the Islamic Dawa Party headed by Maliki, continued,  “The amendment will grant us broad powers in our involvement with the federal authorities, which are represented by the Ministry of Oil and official sectors supervising issues having to do with energy and in the management of matters dealing with oil.”

He went on, saying,  “The local government in Maysan will cooperate with the Council of Representatives to pass laws to grant the province clear powers in the oil file management.” He added, “The presence of new legislation that gives us a wide margin to act in the oil sector helps increase the oil production capacity.”

Omar al-Shaher is a contributor to Al-Monitor’s Iraq Pulse. His writing has appeared in publications including France’s LeMonde, Iraq's Alesbuyia, Egypt’s Al-Ahaly and the Elaph website. He previously covered political and security affairs for Iraq's Al-Mada newspaper.