Criticism for cancelling food ration card

BAGHDAD/ Aswat al-Iraq: State of Law MP Mansour al-Timimi criticized government's decisions to cancel the food ration card and replace it with a certain sum of money, describing this move as "devastating Iraqi economy due to the increasing inflation in the country".

In a statement, copy received by Aswat al-Iraq, he added that "these amounts are not sufficient to meet the actual needs due to the increase in prices and greediness of merchants".

On the other hand, Economic Media Center called for having supportive measures before cancelling the food ration card, proposing to gradually cancelling it with governmental provision and support of its materials with reasonable prices.

The center warned that such measures will have negative aspects, particularly when the citizen depended on this system for the last 33 years.

It warned against "disappearing of the basic foodstuffs abruptly, which will lead to a new economic crisis".

Iraqi Cabinet decided yesterday to replace the food ration card with an amount of money for each person.

The amount stipulated was 15000 dinars ($12) per person on a monthly basis.