In other words, the job of auditing the regional government’s accounts and negotiating the handover of revenues to the federal government will be the key criteria in setting the KRG’s final share of the budget. Moreover, there are bigger and more complicated issues that could send the crisis in another direction, most notably the region’s vast debts to the central government and international oil companies.
Former Oil Minister Hussain al-Shahristani said at a press conference on Nov. 12 that “the KRG’s debts have now reached $51.4 billion, which has escalated the crisis in Iraq,” noting that the KRG had received some $18.5 billion through oil sales and customs revenues on top of its 17% share of the federal budget.
“The Iraqi government should not have to deal with the consequences of an oil policy in which it played no part and did not ask for,” he said. “Whoever signed the contracts should deal with the consequences.”
It appears that Baghdad has plenty of reasons to cut the KRG’s share of the budget. It also has the economic tools to exert major pressure in order to impose its dominance over the country’s wealth and revenues in their entirety, as well as annulling the Kurdish independence referendum, providing international powers do not interfere to influence the political parties that control the parliament and central government.
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