NASA: Staff that support the International Space Station remained employed.Most activities shut down, including the Bureau of Labor Statistics and worker protection investigations. Interior: 82.9% of workers: National parks, museums, and monuments were closed. Internal Revenue Service: Most services shut down.Housing and Urban Development: 86.7% of workers.Health and Human Services: 24% of staff.Food and Drug Administration: 29.4% of staff.Environmental Protection Agency: 92.9% of workers.Energy: Oversight of the safety of the nation's nuclear arsenal and nuclear energy sites remained in place.Education: Public schools remained open.The National Weather Service continued providing forecasts. Reports from the Bureau of Economic Analysis were delayed. Transparency International ranks Iraq 168 out of 180 countries on its 2018 Corruption Perception Index, while the World Bank's "Ease of Doing Business" ranking places Iraq at 171 out of 190 economies. Some of those bold reforms include greater support for private enterprise and non-oil sectors to diversify revenue sources and reduce dependence on the private sector, more efficient and transparent business procedures to facilitate investment, and perhaps most importantly, dedicated efforts to combat and punish endemic state corruption. Operational spending (read: salaries) will eat up the largest part, about 75 percent compared to under 25 percent for investment." It also does not promise much in the way of the bold economic reforms Iraq needs. "It's a budget that's big in its spending, big in its deficit, but small in its investment allocations. "The result is far from perfect," said Omar al-Nidawi, a country analyst and Iraq director at advisory firm Gryphon Partners, who noted the dearth of resources facing Baghdad. Neither the prime minister's office nor the Iraqi Embassy in London were available for a comment at time of publication. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has calculated Iraq would need more than $88 billion to rebuild those areas, but international commitments have yet to meet even half of that goal.īut the budget is also a reflection of the political pressures and competing priorities in Iraq's fragmented government, whose Prime Minister, Adel Abdel Mahdi, lacks a firm base of support and whose cabinet remains incomplete more than 8 months after national elections. Parliament members from the predominantly Sunni areas devastated by the anti-Islamic State (IS) campaign accuse the Shia-dominated government of not allocating sufficient funds to their areas' reconstruction. $27.8 billion will go to investments, with the deficit set to more than double to $23.1 billion, as reported by AFP. Nearly half of the budget - $52 billion - will go to public sector salaries, pensions, and social security for government employees, a 15 percent spike from 2018. Too much of the budget goes to salaries… In the meantime, necessary spending on new infrastructure and reconstruction is not adequate." "Despite being a very large spending plan, Iraq's new budget still suffers from the same problems. "The amount of waste and wrongly allocated money is outrageous," Abbas Kadhim, director of the Atlantic Council's Iraq Initiative, told CNBC on Tuesday. Personal Loans for 670 Credit Score or Lower Personal Loans for 580 Credit Score or Lower Best Debt Consolidation Loans for Bad Credit
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