KRG implements financial reform for 2016

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region (K24) – The Kurdistan Region Council of Ministers held a meeting on Monday to discuss the financial and economic situations the region is facing.

The cabinet approved 11 decisions to deal with the acute economic and financial crisis the Kurdistan Region has faced since its budget share by former Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki’s government in 2014, and by current PM Haidar al-Abadi’s in 2015. According to the decisions, allowances of the high ranked officials will be cut, reduced, and reorganized.

“It is required from all authorities and political parties in the Kurdistan Region to bear a common responsibility to face this crisis and pass the current stage,” Kurdistan Region Government (KRG) Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani said according to a statement on the KRG website.

The KRG decisions include 50% reduction in the allowances of the Kurdistan Region president and his deputy, Prime Minister and his deputy, as well as all ministers and advisors and other senior officials in the judiciary.

PM Barzani also said that, “The KRG will work on increasing revenue and reducing the expenditure because we have reached a level where the government is obliged to take some bold decisions” in the face of current financial issues.

According to the KRG cabinet’s decisions, which will go into effect beginning January 1, 2016, it will stop the allowances of the Kurdistan Region parliament by including allowances of the speaker, his deputy and members of parliament.

Deputy Prime Minister Qubad Talabani indicated various factors that have been badly affecting economic and financial situations in the Kurdistan Region, including “cutting KRG’s share in the Iraqi federal budget, low oil prices, continuous war on ISIS and influx of refugees and IDPs to the Kurdistan Region,” the KRG statement added.