Al-Mandalawi calls for holding periodic meetings before and after enacting the budget to ensure fair distribution of its revenues in accordance with constitutional mechanisms

Baghdad, Acting Speaker of the House of Representatives, Mohsen Al-Mandalawi, called for holding regular periodic meetings before and after the budget legislation to ensure fair distribution of its revenues in accordance with constitutional mechanisms and the government and local programme. A statement from his media office stated that Al-Mandalawi sponsored, this morning, Tuesday, an expanded conference on legislative and oversight cooperation between the House of Representatives and the provincial councils not organized into a region, in the presence of the heads of the parliamentary committees (legal, financial, strategic planning, and the regions and governorates not organized into a region), and heads and MPs and members of the provincial councils, at the hall of the martyr Abu Mahdi Al-Muhandis, may God rest his soul, inside the House of Representatives building. During the opening speech, Al-Mandalawi stressed that the conference establishes a new phase of integration between the House of Representat ives and the governorate councils, and aims to organize and develop cooperation mechanisms between them, and is the beginning of a phase in which everyone participates towards (a partnership of legislation, oversight, and representation to provide better performance), noting the central importance of building a vision and policies while preserving the specificity of the region and governorates and their legal jurisdictions, to overcome the state of impasse resulting from the transition from severe centralization to administrative decentralization and ensure success.' The Acting Speaker of the House of Representatives recommended joint work between Parliament and the governorate councils to legislate and implement federal laws, especially the general federal budget law, indicating that the Constitution has guaranteed fair shares for the regions and governorates in a way that ensures the fulfillment of their responsibilities, in addition to establishing a cooperation and partnership methodology that ensures th e presence of the mature legislative opinion of the governorates in federal legislation, as well as holding regular periodic meetings before and after the enactment of the federal general budget aimed at attending to the vision of the provincial legislative councils to ensure fair distribution of budget revenues in accordance with constitutional mechanisms, the federal government program, and local government programs.' According to the statement, Al-Mandalawi called on local governments to develop ambitious and realistic service programs that rise and are compatible with the needs of the governorates and the federal government's curriculum and programs, stressing his aspiration to reach a common vision for legislative, supervisory and representative work, and a joint understanding and work to preserve the exclusive and shared constitutional powers of the federal government and local governments, and reduce the gaps and intersections to the minimum, indicating that clarity of the future political and legisla tive vision would crystallize the draft law of the Federal Council, and clarify its objectives and powers, to contribute to the completion of the second legislative chamber, which is responsible for considering federal legislation.' Source: National Iraqi News Agency