With every economic crisis in Iraq, the decision-making circles in the country repeat the talk about the need to correct the general economic situation, and to attract foreign and domestic investments in order to start reconstruction and provide job opportunities for youth.
However, the Iraqis realize every time that these calls hardly find an application on the ground. Due to conflicting laws, as well as corruption and administrative bureaucracy.
Conflicting laws
In 2006, Iraq witnessed the approval of the first investment law, No. (13), which is the establishment of the National Investment Commission, and bodies branch out of it in all Iraqi governorates, and it is concerned with bringing in local and international investments in order to improve the country's services and infrastructure and create job opportunities for Iraqis, who have been suffering for decades The unemployment rate is the highest in the region.
This law did not succeed in achieving any goal for which it was legislated, according to many experts, including the former director of the Nineveh Investment Authority, Muwaffaq Younis, who confirms that since the legislation of Law No. (13), most Iraqi ministries have opened departments concerned with investment in order not to give investment bodies a chance Acquisition of bringing in investors, which leads to the withdrawal of the rug from their ministries.
Yunus explains this by saying, "The work of investment agencies is summarized in accordance with Law (13) that the state provides suitable land for projects in exchange for the investor to work to establish and operate the Iraqi labor without the state paying a penny." He pointed out that the investor, according to the law, reviews the Single Window Department within The Investment Authority, which takes care of all procedures without referring to any other ministry.
As for the legal expert, Amir al-Da'ami believes that the reason for the collapse of the investment (or its death) - as he put it - is due to the weakness of the state and the failure to impose its prestige, as the parties and militias seize the lands without being monitored or censored, and without the opportunity for investors.
In his speech to Al-Jazeera Net, Al-Daami believes that the problem is not related to the investment law and its contradiction with other laws as much as it relates to the state’s ability to control, as any foreign investor cannot obtain any investment license without paying royalties and bribes to the parties and ministries, which leads to his escape due to the absence of Any guarantees or protection for the funds that will be spent, taking into account that investment agencies are divided between parties according to quotas in place for years.
Anatomical defect
Despite the passage of 14 years since the approval of the Iraqi investment law, there is hardly any foreign investment project in the country.
The Iraqi investor Dhakwan Al-Saffar believes that the problem of Iraq is the legislation that does not facilitate the entry of investors into the country, in addition to the country's lack of legislation for the work of foreign banks, and the absence of a banking system that facilitates banking operations.
Al-Saffar pointed out in his speech to Al-Jazeera Net that the laws in Iraq are interpreted according to the whims of officials, which leads to the dispersion of the investor between 16 ministries and governmental institutions, he said.
In turn, the deputy of the Parliamentary Legal Committee, Rashid Al-Azzawi, says that the investment law in Iraq is faced by many obstacles, the first of which is the conflict of this law with other investment laws in the ministries of the state, although the Investment Law (13) has priority according to its legislation, in addition to the investment law itself. It does not protect the investor's money (Iraqi and foreign), and the law requires the investor's financial disclosure.
Al-Azzawi - who used to work as an investor before becoming a parliamentarian - confirms in his speech to Al-Jazeera Net that investment in Iraq will not see the light unless the state controls all the main joints; Such as border crossings, taxes and customs, as well as transparency of work and facilitating procedures through the application of electronic governance.
With regard to the allocation of lands, Al-Azzawi reveals that the majority of the lands in the country are seized by influential people and parties, and therefore they seized the lands through investment, then sold investment licenses without implementing any valuable project, considering that working in single window sections is just an ink on paper.
He noted that the ministries that own lands suitable for investment projects refuse to offer them as investment opportunities within investment agencies, and it was necessary that Law (13) include transferring their ownership to investment agencies in order to reduce all these obstacles.
Mwafak Younes reveals more details about the land problem, which he described as one of the biggest obstacles facing investors in Iraq, and the ministries that have investment and land-owning departments, such as the municipalities and finance ministries, have damaged investment and lost the investor’s compass by exploiting these lands to finance some of their institutions. It works on the principle of self-financing and government at the same time, as well as increasing cases of corruption when the investor reviews them.
Massive losses
Iraq suffered heavy losses as a result of the investment law's contradiction (13) with other laws, according to a member of the Economy and Investment Committee in Parliament, Representative Nada Shaker Jawdat.
The Iraqi MP confirms that investment in Iraq has been absent since 2003, and that the country has lost great opportunities that could have been able to advance in reality through rebuilding and providing job opportunities.
In her interview with Al-Jazeera Net, Jawdat indicated that there is a hegemony of personalities, parties and militias that prevents sober investment companies from getting an opportunity to enter the field of investment in the country.
It cites an example of this by the poor reality of electricity in the country, despite the state's spending of more than $ 65 billion since 2003 without a clear impact, as well as the presence of import agencies and "mafias" working on the continuation of Iraq in its consumption status and excessive import that will not succeed with it. investment.
Nada Jawdat drew attention to the experiences of successful Arab countries in investing, such as Jordan and Egypt, which believes that all investment opportunities in them are presented transparently with the completion of all their procedures before they are put forward, pointing out that Iraq still adopts complex paper procedures and the old banking system, as well as corruption in the billions.
For his part, economist Mazen Al-Ashiker believes that what is known as the one-window principle stated in Investment Law No. (13) gave priority to the law in completing investment transactions within only two weeks, and through the Investment Authority in each governorate.
However, the reality indicates otherwise. The investor has to complete all his transactions by reviewing all ministries related to land ownership or official approvals in ministries of finance and municipalities, and thus the law has been emptied of its economic content.
Al-Ashiker believes in his speech to Al-Jazeera Net that the only way to rebuild Iraq is to establish a reconstruction council, which must be in accordance with the principle of participation, and that investment bodies should be attached to it, with the need for a global accounting firm to undertake all monitoring and auditing operations and come out with a periodic report.
Al-Ashiker cites the experiences of countries that went through the Iraqi experience, such as Japan and Germany after the Second World War, in which the reconstruction councils succeeded in rebuilding them from the rubble, indicating that all parties are against the formation of the reconstruction council, which, if applied, the investment budgets of the ministries will end, and thus these parties lose their shares. In the field of project referral and land allocation.
A member of the Parliamentary Legal Committee, Rashid Al-Azzawi, believes that the only hope for activating investment is to amend his law and cancel what is opposed to it in a way that protects the investor and his money, as well as the need to announce all available investment opportunities transparently, after completing all its procedures with the renewal of the Iraqi banking system, which he described as "worn out, which Adopts outdated mechanisms.
He concluded by stressing that Iraq does not have any strategic investment plan that specifies what the country needs from projects as well as getting lost in work.
With regard to profit and loss, journalist Ahmed Al-Obeidi confirms to Al-Jazeera Net that the Iraqi state has spent hundreds of millions of dollars in financing investment agencies in terms of buildings, furniture and salaries, but the number of licensed investment projects, which are estimated at about 1500, have only been implemented by a small number throughout the country.