The newspapers issued in Baghdad today, Monday, the thirty-first of July, focused on the visit of Kuwaiti Foreign Minister Salem Abdullah Al-Sabah and his talks with the three presidencies, and followed up on the reasons for delaying the implementation of the budget and the problem of water scarcity and drought and other issues, including the health situation in Iraq.
The newspapers highlighted, with prominent headlines on their front pages, Iraq’s assertion of the necessity of consolidating relations with Kuwait and overcoming outstanding issues, and the Kuwaiti side’s assertion of the need to end the file of maritime border demarcation.
They noted that the President of the Republic, Abdul Latif Jamal Rashid, during his meeting with Kuwaiti Foreign Minister Salem Abdullah Al-Sabah, stressed the importance of consolidating brotherly relations between the two countries and enhancing understanding and constructive cooperation in order to achieve common interests and encourage investment and trade opportunities, with the need to continue joint coordination and work together to find satisfactory understandings regarding outstanding issues and reaching decisive solutions that contribute to building a prosperous future.
They also paid attention to the confirmation of Prime Minister Muhammad al-Sudani, the availability of a serious desire to overcome the outstanding issues between Iraq and Kuwait, in a way that preserves the interests of the two peoples and the two countries, and the confirmation of Parliament Speaker Muhammad al-Halbousi, the support of the legislative authority in Iraq for the government’s efforts to enhance cooperation and resolve outstanding issues with Kuwait, for the benefit of the two brotherly peoples.
Al-Sabah newspaper, which is published by the Iraqi Media Network, followed the reasons for the delay in starting the implementation of the budget and working with its provisions.
The newspaper said: “Nearly 50 days after approving the country’s budget for the years 2023, 2024, and 2025, most government departments are still awaiting implementation instructions issued by the Ministry of Finance in light of widespread controversy over the reasons for the delay.”
It added: “Although the budget was published in Al-Waqa’i newspaper (the Official Newspaper) after its approval and then its recent correction and entry into force, the departments are not able to act on its provisions, except after approval of the implementation instructions by the Ministry of Finance.”
The MP, Mustafa Al-Karawi suggested, in an interview with Al-Sabah, that the current week would be the date for launching the instructions for implementing the budget by the Ministry of Finance, noting: “The articles challenged by the government will not affect the budget, but were limited to some paragraphs that do not affect the whole.”
The newspaper quoted economist Nabil Al-Tamimi as saying: “The delay in issuing instructions for the current year’s budget indicates a government failure represented by the Ministry of Finance.”
Al-Tamimi criticized the delay in issuing these instructions, although they do not need major updates and changes, expressing his surprise that the Ministry of Finance did not benefit from the time during the preparation and discussion of the budget by Parliament.
As for Al-Zaman newspaper, it continued to follow up the problem of water scarcity and its negative effects.
In this regard, it referred to the assertion of water and marshes expert Juma Al-Darraji: “The water reserves of Iraq are not sufficient to overcome the drought crisis.”
Al-Darraji said in a statement to the newspaper: “The water crisis is a sensitive issue, and is like a war involving in the framework of psychological warfare, due to the neglect of the size and impact of the problem, and the ambiguity of information about water storage, especially in Maysan Governorate.”
Regarding attempts to stir up the Iraqi street, the expert explained: “The citizen has a general culture of water, related to his homeland, his livelihood, his rituals and his civilization, and publishing is an important means of expression to deliver a message to those concerned with the magnitude of the drought crisis, and he tells the world that Iraq is exposed to the migration of birds and the death of livestock,” he asked ( Why does the Ministry object to publishing the reality and facts adopted by some activists in the field of environment, water and nature reserves?
He stressed: “There are solutions at the external level related to international understandings about launching Iraq’s share, while the internal level is related to state administration in accordance with Article 110, the eighth paragraph, and Article 114, the seventh paragraph, based on the provisions of the constitution,” noting: “The water policy in Iraq is suspended due to the deficit located in important dams, such as Bakhma Dam, which covers an area of 100 square kilometers and stores more than 17 billion cubic meters of water, and has huge imports.
In another vital matter, Al-Zawraa newspaper, published by the Iraqi Journalists Syndicate, followed the challenges facing the health reality in Iraq.
A member of the Parliamentary Health and Environment Committee, Siham Al-Moussawi, said in an interview with Al-Zawraa: “The first problem we have today is the lack of infrastructure or modern hospitals, in addition to that there is a shortage of doctors in all institutions, whether hospitals or health centers spread in the districts.”
Al-Moussawi added, “We are suffering from the file of untested medicines, and we only have two examination centers in Baghdad and Basra. Today, we suffer from the presence of large quantities of unlicensed medicines in stores, pharmacies, and hospitals.”
A member of the Health Committee referred to campaigns to hold stockholders accountable, but at the same time the government or the Ministry of Health did not take the necessary measures to open more outlets to examine medicines in order to address this problem.
She stressed: “Our institutions lack the presence of modern equipment in international hospitals, and therefore the Ministry of Health is forced to carry out complex and difficult medical evacuation operations to hospitals in Turkey, India and a number of hospitals in countries around the world, and we see the suffering of patients through extortion by these hospitals as well as operations, some of which are unsuccessful and not at the required level.
While it revealed a problem in the distribution of health personnel, which it described as “an incorrect distribution in the institutions and the absence of doctors in most health centers in the districts and sub-districts or hospitals located in the districts, while most of the large numbers are concentrated in the city centers, which is an unfair distribution,” indicating: There are interferences and favoritism in this file that led to an imbalance.”
Source: National Iraqi News Agency
