No guarantees Baghdad will send KRG employee salaries: Official
The Federal Government of Iraq might be auditing the number of employees and their salaries in the Kurdistan Region’s Education and Health Ministries, but there are no guarantees that Baghdad would send the money, warned a Kurdish official on Monday.
ERBIL, Kurdistan Region (Kurdistan 24) - The Federal Government of Iraq might be auditing the number of employees and their salaries in the Kurdistan Region’s Education and Health Ministries, but there are no guarantees that Baghdad would send the money, warned a Kurdish official on Monday.
The central government sent a delegation of 16 members to Erbil to audit the number of government employees in both the Education and Health Ministry of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG).
The delegation is divided into two eight-member committees to audit each ministry.
“We will help the delegation review the list of all government workers… All employees are hired based on the Iraqi budget law, and none have been hired outside of this law,” Yousif Osman, Director-General of the Planning Department for the Education Ministry, told reporters on Monday during a press conference in Erbil.
He added that Baghdad had given no guarantees or made any promises that it would send the salaries for government employees in those ministries.
Erbil and Baghdad have held multiple exchanges over the past few weeks over salaries for the two ministries to be provided by the central government before addressing the need for federal funding for other departments. Talks are ongoing.
“We will provide the committees with all the information required and facilitate their work to secure wages for the employees,” Viyan Mohammed, Director-General of Planning Department for the Health Ministry, told Kurdistan 24.
Both delegations from Erbil and Baghdad described the meetings as positive. They will also visit the Health and Education departments’ offices in Duhok and Sulaimani provinces as part of their audit of government employees.
Kurdish officials from both ministries have said that a show of good faith would be for Baghdad to send a month’s worth of salaries, resuming federal funding for the first time since 2014, until the delegation finishes their audit of the Kurdistan Region’s employees.
Ties between the KRG and the Iraqi government have considerably deteriorated following the Sep. 25 referendum on independence which saw an overwhelming majority support secession.
Baghdad cut the federal budget share of the Kurdistan Region at the start of 2014 which led the region into a financial crisis.
Editing by Nadia Riva