Shafaq News / Prime Minister Mohammed Shia Al-Sudani revealed, on Tuesday evening, the reasons for the rise in the exchange rate of the US dollar against the Iraqi dinar, and while he recognized the need for “scrutiny” legal sanctions against currency speculators, he pointed to the presence of private banks and money changers seeking to keep dollar prices high.
“There are problems in banking reform and significant challenges faced by the government, and the current dollar exchange rate in the markets, which is the rate of currency speculators,” Al-Sudani said during the weekly press conference and attended by Shafaq News.
“There are private entities, banks, traders and owners of exchange companies who seek to keep the dollar exchange rate on the current rate,” he added.
“We support some banks that we trust are good and have achieved successes, in order to be part of the solution,” Al-Sudani stressed, adding, “One of the problems we face is that Iraqi law does not contain strong and strict sanctions against those who are arrested by the dollar exchange rate.”
He pointed out that “despite the high dollar exchange rate, the prices of food are stable and good and the government will take the role of some traders in some matters, and there is a good initiative to provide medicines from international origins for chronic diseases and sell them in the market at subsidized prices, as well as construction materials we will provide and sell at a subsidized price, which will force traders and speculators to reduce the price of the dollar in the market.”
On the other hand, Al-Sudani pointed out that “the Development Fund is one of the important projects we adopt and is supposed to have a special law, and the draft fund was included in the budget law.”
“Today, this fund was voted on and this is a glimmer of hope for the Iraqi economy, and this fund will be exclusively for the private sector and provide investment opportunities, and one of its priorities is to build schools with nearly a thousand schools, and then it will have a role in other sectors such as industry, environment and housing,” he said.
In the electricity file, Al-Sudani explained that “the costs of producing electricity are very high and the government today gave the green light to the Ministry of Electricity to adopt very modern electronic systems to measure the wages of electricity consumption and we will take into account those with limited income according to a certain mechanism. This system will contribute to preventing the waste of electricity and provide stability in energy.”
“There will be experience for these organizations in 10 regions, in each region 10 sectors, and in each sector 50,000 subscribers, these will receive 24-hour electricity,” he said.
He stressed that “these systems will be under the supervision of major companies, and the Prime Minister and the Iraqi government have granted the Ministry of Electricity a license to contract with companies, and there will also be a treatment for any imbalance in the reading of consumption wages recorded by the systems in a short time and there will be teams dedicated to address any defect in record time.”
In another context, Al-Sudani said, “On October 27, it will be a whole year since the formation of the government, and we asked the House of Representatives to host to talk about the achievements and failures made since the formation of the government until now.”
