The newspapers issued in Baghdad today, Thursday, August 17th, followed up the political alliances to run in the local elections and the wasted money in the Ministry of Electricity and other issues, including the water file.
Al-Zawraa newspaper, published by the Iraqi Journalists Syndicate, followed the political alliances in preparation for the elections.
In this regard, it referred to the statement of the Elections Commission spokeswoman, Jumana Al-Ghalali: “With the end of the registration period for political alliances on August 7, 2023, the work resulted in the registration of (296) political parties since the establishment of the Department of Political Parties and Organizations Affairs in 2015, while the number of requests reached registration for parties (under establishment) is (63) political parties, in addition to the registration of (50) political alliances, of which (17) alliances have expressed their desire to continue.
She added: “The commission intends to implement the first experimental simulations of public and private voting, which are scheduled to take place on September 2, 2023, with one station in all electoral governorate offices, including those in the Kurdistan region, and one station in each registration center in the (15) governorates covered by the elections, which are (906) centers, in order to ensure the system of verification, counting, sorting and its updates, and the work is done through the specialized employees of the Simulation Committee and in the presence of the United Nations Electoral Assistance Team and the International Team for Electoral Systems.
She pointed out: “The Chairman of the Board of Commissioners and members of the Independent High Electoral Commission held regular and extraordinary sessions on August 6 and 8, 2023, to ratify the establishment of (26) political alliances, and to grant two political parties conditional permission, in addition to ratifying the instructions for the maximum spending limit on the electoral campaigns for the irregular provincial council elections in a region for the year 2023.
She continued: “The Chairman of the Board of Commissioners, Judge Omar Ahmed Mohamed, signed a memorandum of understanding with the Shams Network to monitor the elections, for its important role in imparting integrity and transparency to the electoral process and participating in educating voters and educating them on the importance of participating in the elections.”
As for Al-Sabah newspaper, which is published by the Iraqi Media Network, it followed the wasted money in the Ministry of Electricity.
The newspaper said: “The Office of Financial Supervision revealed the volume of “two billion” expenditures of the Ministry of Electricity on unreceived energy amounting to $937 million over the past five years.
It indicated that: “According to information from the Bureau, its report during last June, which is concerned with the specialized audit of the activities of the Department of Investments and Contracts in Electricity, confirmed that the Ministry of Electricity bears large sums of money as a result of the purchase by the (Take or Pay) method, which obliges the Ministry to pay sums for energy that not received, regardless of any emergency circumstance, whether fuel shortage or failure to withstand transmission lines, meaning that what has been spent on energy not actually received is approximately $937 million for the years (2017-2022).
The report of the Office of Financial Supervision stated, according to Al-Sabah, that “it was possible to take advantage of the wasted amounts in the construction of new steam generation plants with a capacity of up to one thousand megawatts, according to their estimated price,” noting that “most of the purchase contracts did not include a provision requiring the return of ownership of the investment stations to the Ministry after the end of the contract period and the recovery of the amounts for their establishment.
It added, “The Ministry of Electricity granted sovereign guarantees for investment contracts with huge sums of money that exceed the costs of establishing investment stations, as the values of sovereign guarantees for investment companies amounted to the equivalent of 33 billion and 508 million dollars, at a time when the Ministry of Electricity and the Department of Contracts and Investments had to express an opinion on these guarantees before issuing them and adjusting their amounts in accordance with the interest of the ministry, and then canceling them after the investment companies recover the amounts for establishing these stations.
Al-Zaman newspaper continued to follow up the water file and the reality of water storage in Iraq.
In this regard, the newspaper indicated that the Minister of Water Resources, Aoun Diab, confirmed the increase in water flows from Turkey.
It quoted the minister as saying: “The water file in Iraq faces great challenges due to the scarcity of water and the prevention of water releases from neighboring countries,” indicating: “The crisis affected all the northern and southern cities of Iraq, forcing the people of villages and some regions to dig deep to secure water.”
Diab explained: “The ministry continued its discussions with the upstream countries to improve the water file under the supervision of the government, as it is a sovereign and strategic file related to the sustainability of life,” referring to talking frankly with Turkey about the direct reason for the lack of releases despite the availability of sufficient quantities of water from strategic storages, and the extent of Turkey’s slowdown, despite the request of Prime Minister Muhammad al-Sudani, in a written message to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, to find solutions to this problem, and the ministry’s calls to release Iraq’s water share.
He continued: “Turkey is able to release quantities of water from the Ataturk dams on the Euphrates River and Ilisu Dam on the Tigris River in specific quantities, which were discussed during the ministerial delegation’s visit to Turkey last June,” noting that “a plan was supposed to be implemented since the beginning of last July to release not less than 370 cubic meters per second from Ilisu Dam towards Mosul Dam and 350 cubic meters from Ataturk Dam to the Turkish-Syrian border to Iraq towards the Euphrates path.
He stressed: “The agreement has not been implemented since July 1, its scheduled date, and it will be activated during the current month, through the releases of the Ilisu Dam with an amount of 500 cubic meters for water sustainability.”
Source: National Iraqi News Agency