Kurdistan Region pushes for government employees’ salaries to be sent from Baghdad
ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) Spokesperson Jutyar Adil announced on Friday that officials are working hard to secure funds to pay local government salaries that have fluctuated multiple times in recent years amid ongoing disputes with the federal government in Baghdad.
“On the basis of the recent financial agreement between the Kurdistan Regional Government and the Baghdad government, especially on the Federal Financial Budget Law for the year 2021, the federal government sent 200 billion dinars last month to the Kurdistan Region,” Adel said in an interview with Kurdistan 24.
He added, “We hope that 200 billion dinars will be sent in the coming days, so that the salaries of employees are paid in full and without any deduction.”
He pointed out that a short-term delay in the funds to pay salaries could be attributed to federal government offices being closed during the past two days because of the Ashura religious observance.
“We hope that the dues for the current month of August will be sent early next week so that we can start distributing employee salaries on the 25th of this month.”
In response to a question about the possibility of not sending August dues from Baghdad, Adel said that “through the efforts of the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Natural Resources and other ministries, and under the supervision of the Prime Minister of the Kurdistan Regional
Government, revenues increased to some extent thanks to the stability of the oil price.”
He went on to say, “We are trying very hard to distribute salaries without any deduction,” stressing the existence of a relationship with the mechanism of income collection and the economic and commercial movement at the border crossings.
Adel noted that the KRG has refused, since the start of its negotiations with Baghdad, “to make the issue of the strength of the people of Kurdistan become a political issue.”
After receiving a long-overdue disbursement in July, the KRG removed the salary deduction that had been in place since early 2020 when the coronavirus pandemic and the resulting crash in oil prices limited the region’s ability to pay its public sector employees on time and in full.
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Adel concluded his speech by saying that “this was the strategy of the KRG from the beginning until now, and we are continuing our efforts to not politicize this issue.”
Editing by John J. Catherine