Kurdish opponents: Oil revenues go to Baghdad better than pockets of partisan whales

Sharing resources between political families and marginalizing development and essential services for the Kurds.

ERBIL - Kurdish opponents at home and abroad announced their support for the Federal Court's ruling that the Kurdish oil and gas law was unconstitutional, which allowed partisan families to turn into big whales by monopolizing oil revenues and using them for enrichment at a time when the majority of Kurdish citizens live in difficult social conditions.

Kurdish activists, writers, intellectuals and politicians opposed to power-sharing in the Kurdistan region of Iraq issued a statement urging “the use of broad public support to consolidate the decision and implement it to the full so that the next government can extract the oil and gas file from the hands of the militias of the ruling families in the Kurdistan region of Iraq once and for all.”

Kurdish observers believe that the region's residents are now convinced that the survival of the oil and gas sector in the hands of the family of Democratic Party leader Massoud Barzani and the heirs of former President Jalal Talabani and the families surrounding them will not change the people's situation in anything, and on the contrary, the situation may go to the worse, especially after the ruling families succeeded In confronting the protest demonstrations and silencing the opponents, it benefited from Western support for the region in its dispute with the central government for political ends.

Observers believe that returning the responsibility for extracting oil and gas to the federal government and distributing it to the provinces in known proportions will allow Kurdish citizens to know the amount of revenues that go to the region and ways of disbursing them, which will enable them to monitor them instead of the current situation that does not allow anyone to know those numbers and where those revenues are spent.

Media reports say that the region receives approximately $8 billion annually in oil revenues, more than half of which goes to extracting companies, while it is not known how the rest of the revenues are distributed or where they are invested, especially in the absence of any presence of these revenues at the level of developing the reality of the region.

These reports indicate great corruption in the oil and gas sector in the region, some of which is supported by companies and countries that benefit from the absence of government control over extraction, export and selling prices, revealing that every oil and gas company does not succeed in concluding any investment contract in Kurdistan until it is Large commissions were given to the dominant political families, whether in Sulaymaniyah or Erbil.

The region finds direct support from Turkey to export hundreds of thousands of barrels of oil per day through the Turkish port of Ceyhan, amid Iraqi accusations that Ankara is seeking to strain the region’s relationship with the Iraqi government in Baghdad so that it can obtain oil at the cheapest prices, and exploit the ruling families’ need for money to conclude a long-term agreement that makes Turkey is a gateway to the region's oil exports to Europe.

Crude oil trucks do not stop moving from Sulaimaniyah province, which is controlled by the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, towards Iran.

And the outgoing Iraqi president, Barham Salih, chose to be on the side of the Kurdish opposition by calling on Thursday to respect judicial decisions, and for a serious and urgent dialogue between the Kurdistan region and the federal government to find work mechanisms that guarantee the decision of the Federal Supreme Court regarding the unconstitutionality of the oil and gas law in the Kurdistan region, and to adopt it In accordance with the constitutional rights and aspirations of citizens in the region and other Iraqis.

Saleh added that "the parties must assume responsibility to overcome the crisis and prevent its deterioration and the need to legislate the oil and gas law, because the reluctance of political forces to approve it for more than a decade contributed to creating problems and crises."

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Observers say that Barham Salih's position in support of the Federal Court's decision is strong evidence that the opposition's position is logical and stems from facts on the ground that show that Kurdish citizens need central support to push the families who control oil and gas in order to change the way they manage the region and to employ the revenues in the areas of development and provision. Places of work and development of health services and education, which are completely neglected sectors.

Protest demonstrations that took place in the past years revealed the extent of the estrangement between the Kurdish street and the leadership of the region in its two parts in Sulaymaniyah and Erbil, where the demonstrators chanted slogans, including “Down with the thieves” and “Down with the corrupt government.”

Barham Salih's position in support of the Federal Court's decision is strong evidence that the opposition's position is logical and stems from facts on the ground

At a time when poverty and the absence of jobs and services push Kurdish youth to migrate towards Europe, a small group of politicians' children and their allied families live in luxury, which exacerbates social tension.

Describing these differences, the Kurdish political writer Joan Debo says, “It is as if the sons and grandsons of the founders and the old fighters who ignited the fire of struggle and revolutions in Kurdistan are now practically paying the bills for the struggle of their fathers and grandfathers, and they receive billions of dollars and billions of dollars for their efforts and efforts at home and abroad, while most of the people do not find What he achieves very little of his pre-primitive dreams.”

The Kurdish opposition said in its statement that “the decision of the Federal Court was supposed to have been issued ten or more years ago; But it came late due to the concessions made by the Iraqi forces and parties to the families who own the oil wells and fields in the region,” urging “the central government to guarantee the region’s budget with its details, including salaries and allocating the specified amounts for the development of the regions in addition to the operational budget.”

On Tuesday, the Supreme Federal Court of Iraq, the highest judicial authority in the country, issued an order obligating the Kurdistan Regional Government to hand over all oil produced on its lands to the federal government. And the court’s decision stated, “obligating the regional government to hand over all oil production from the oil fields in the Kurdistan region (…) to the federal government represented by the Federal Ministry of Oil.”

The ruling also included “obligating the Kurdistan Regional Government to enable the Iraqi Ministry of Oil and the Federal Financial Supervision Bureau to review all oil contracts concluded with the Kurdistan Regional Government regarding the export and sale of oil and gas.” He explained that this procedure will allow determining the financial rights owed by the Kurdistan Regional Government, as well as the region's share in the annual federal general budget.