Baghdad The Council of Ministers, in its session today, Wednesday, issued several decisions regarding the file of housing and new cities.

A statement issued by the Council said that a session was held to discuss the housing problem that Iraq has been suffering from for decades, indicating that in order to find the necessary solutions to it, in terms of securing adequate housing for citizens, and creating new cities in the governorates, the Council of Ministers issued the following decisions:

1- The Ministry of Construction, Housing, Municipalities and Public Works shall distribute residential lands to all citizens in the new cities that are produced by the Ministry, in accordance with Cabinet Resolution (70 of 2019), in all Iraqi governorates except for the region within the (Dari) initiative.

2- Citizens who previously acquired a plot of land under valid laws or decisions are not included in the provisions of this decision.

3- Adopting the electronic program supervised by the Council of Advisors, as a mechanism for differentiating between citizens to obtain a plot of land and selecting those covered, and announcing their names on the basis of the total points they obtained in each governorate, and in the form of batches according to the plots of land that are completed.

4- The Ministry of Construction, Housing, Municipalities and Public Works shall form technical committees in each governorate to check the data of the applicants, through the window that will be allocated to each committee within the electronic program.

5- The Ministry of Construction, Housing, Municipalities and Public Works, in coordination with the National Investment Commission or the investment authorities in the governorates, shall announce investment opportunities for the development of new cities, and the establishment of infrastructure in them and all service and recreational facilities in these cities.

6- The Ministry of Construction, Housing, Municipalities and Public Works, in cooperation with the Board of Advisors, shall prepare the following:

A- Mechanisms to attract developers or investors to each new city, to ensure that it becomes attractive cities for housing with integrated infrastructure, services, entertainment, health, etc., where forms of job opportunities are available without the state treasury bearing financial burdens.

B – Controls obligating the developer or investor to implement all public service facilities within the new cities, and hand them over to the concerned sectoral authorities, and grant them the right to benefit from commercial and industrial service areas, part of the residential lands, and a percentage not exceeding 30% of the schools located within the new cities, in accordance with the provisions of the Investment Law No. (13 of 2006), its amendments, and the regulations and instructions issued thereunder.

7- The Ministries of Finance and Agriculture are obligated to complete the procedures for transferring the ownership of the lands of new cities whose designs have been approved, from the General Directorate of Urban Planning and located outside the boundaries of the basic design, to the nearest municipal institution in preparation for its inclusion in the future expansion of that municipality, or the creation of other municipalities in accordance with the provisions of the law Municipalities Administration No. (165 of 1964) amended.

8- The Ministry of Justice, through the real estate registration departments, opens notes for real estate registration for new cities, and takes the necessary measures to issue title deed for plots of land separated in these cities in the names of the citizens whose names have been announced.

9- Municipal institutions in the governorates shall open a municipal department for these new cities, to facilitate procedures for registering residential lands in the names of citizens and to provide them with municipal services.

10- The real estate bank and the housing fund shall take the necessary measures to provide long-term soft loans to citizens, to build their housing units in new cities.

According to the statement, the Council of Ministers completed the discussion of other topics on the agenda, and issued the following decisions regarding them:

First / Approval of the recommendation of the Ministerial Council for Energy (131 for the year 2021) regarding the amendment of the decision of the Ministerial Council for Energy (117 for the year 2021), to be as follows:

1- The Ministry of Oil / Oil Products Distribution Company continues to pay the dues of the two companies (Kar and Qaiwan) for the two tripartite contracts, according to the Council of Ministers’ decision (144 of 2021) and the Ministerial Council of Energy’s decision (88 of 2021), in light of the scarcity of financial allocations for the Ministry of Electricity to January 31, 2021.

2- The condition of having the economic feasibility of continuing the contracts set forth in Paragraph (2) of the aforementioned decision shall be added at the end of the extension period from the Ministry of Electricity.

3- The Ministry of Electricity undertakes the preparation of sufficient financial allocations to pay the dues for the purchase of energy from various contracts, and to achieve an allocation to pay the debts owed by the Ministry of Electricity, for the benefit of the Ministry of Oil, for the value of what was paid during the previous periods, according to the relevant decisions of the Council of Ministers and the Ministerial Council for Energy.

Second / Approval of the allocation of the Ministry of Finance (250,000,000) dinars, only two hundred and fifty million dinars, to the Ministry of Migration and Displacement from the emergency reserve, based on the provisions of Article (5) of the Federal Budget Law of the Republic of Iraq for the fiscal year / 2021, and adding it to the chapter on relief and aid social or budget sections of the aforementioned ministry as administrative expenses.

Third / Approval of donating the damaged and damaged materials that are proven in the records of delisting, attached to the letter of the Independent High Electoral Commission No. (Kh/21/R.M/195) dated September 18, 2021, which are in the warehouses of the Independent High Electoral Commission in Baghdad and the provinces, the note value is (5701821,348) dinars, only five billion seven hundred and one million eight hundred and twenty-one thousand three hundred and forty-eight dinars, to the Military Industrialization Authority, for the needs of the aforementioned authority, according to what was stated in its book numbered (Q / 700) dated On September 16, 2021.

Fourth / The commitment of the Ministry of Finance to the General Budget Law and the Federal Financial Management Law (6 of 2019), and the decisions of the Council of Ministers when preparing instructions for implementing the budget law for the coming years, provided that the mentioned instructions include legal texts that facilitate only the implementation of the provisions of the budget law, without addressing matters outside the texts of the budget, including the issue of gifting, provided that these external matters are organized with unified, fixed instructions to avoid repetition in the budget implementation instructions each year.

fifth/- Approval of the amendment of the Council of Ministers Resolution (163 of 2021) regarding the adoption of the baseline of the new Iraqi territorial sea, and the adoption of the (R) coordinate instead of the coordinate (8) agreed upon in the minutes of the meeting held on June 21, 2021, at the headquarters of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in order for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to deposit it with the United Nations.

Sending an alert to the technical committee in charge of drawing the baseline for the Iraqi territorial sea to be careful in its work

Source: National Iraqi News Agency