Iraq’s Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani issued a number of orders, including cancelling allocations to his office and the protection service provided to the former presidents, prime ministers and parliament speakers, in what seemed a shocking step to senior Iraqi officials.
According to an informed Iraqi source, all former presidents and premiers after 2003 were included in the decision. These include ex-presidents Fuad Masoum, and Barham Salih, as well as ex-prime ministers Ayad Allawi, Ibrahim al-Jaafari, Nouri al-Maliki, Haider al-Abadi, Adel Abdul Mahdi and Mustafa al-Kadhimi.
Political observers said these decisions could have negative impacts on the relation between Sudani and senior Iraqi officials and leaders.
Sudani further ordered cancelling the allocations provided to the three presidencies, including President Abdul Latif Rashid, Parliament Speaker Mohammed al-Halbousi and his office.
The source said that his decisions also included cutting 2.5 million dinars from the ministers’ salaries, in addition to canceling allocations to hospitality, treatment, and renting private planes for the three presidencies, including himself.
The PM aims through these decisions to reduce exaggerated government spending.
He banned granting MPs new cars, and this applies to high-ranking officials, including heads of agencies, undersecretaries of ministries, and ambassadors.
Local news agencies quoted a military commander in the Green Zone as saying that the force assigned to protect Kadhimi received orders to withdraw from its location near his house, yet most of the almost 100 security guards did not implement the sudden orders yet.
Unlike former premiers, Kadhimi had previously been subjected to several arrest attempts. Stripping him of protection seemed at first surprising before it became clear that it applies to all former presidents and prime ministers.
In this context, the political source said that Sudani also ordered the shutdown of 20 Iraqi embassies abroad due to the lack of Iraqi expatriates in these countries and the large sums spent on the embassies and their diplomatic staff.
The decision comes in line with the PM’s efforts to restructure the state institutions and limit the government spending. It also comes only a few days after he ordered removing the list of ambassadors prepared to a vote in the parliament.
