Kurdistan
Salam Najim, head of the hydrology department in Dukan Dam, talking to the press on the first day of the strike. February 9, 2021. Photo: Rudaw
ERBIL, Kurdistan Region — Employees working at Sulaimani province’s Dukan Dam went on strike on Tuesday, refusing to work after nearly five months of not being paid for their work, according to a protester.
“We have nearly 100 employees, and we have suspended all work until our salaries are paid,” Salam Najim, head of the hydrology department in Dukan Dam told Rudaw English on Wednesday, claiming that only the dam’s manager has remained working.
Najim, 58, said he has been working at the 60-year-old dam since 1998.
“Work at the dam is not like that at any other establishment,” he said. “One of the safety requirements of a dam is to log data on a daily basis to see what is happening to the dam.”
Despite this critical work, Najim said the workers “had no other choice” than to stop working and protest not having been paid in nearly five months, “due to the political conflict between the [Kurdistan] Region and Baghdad.”
The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) has struggled to pay its civil servants in full and on time for more than five years, due to the war against the Islamic State (ISIS), economic mismanagement and crisis, disputes with Baghdad, and a drop in oil prices.
“We can’t continue to look after the dam and get daily data … we are not responsible for any unfavorable incident that happens at the dam, or for the safety of the people who live below the dam,” Najim told the press on Tuesday at the beginning of the strike.
The budget has been a point of contention between Erbil and Baghdad for several years. However, it worsened in December 2019, when Baghdad agreed to send Erbil a 12.67 percent share of the federal budget in exchange for 250,000 barrels of oil per day, but neither side fully abided by the agreement.
Ties between the two governments have been particularly frayed over the budget in recent months. Deputy Prime Minister of the Kurdistan Region Qubad Talabani has been leading a KRG delegation to Baghdad which has met with senior officials from the federal government and political leaders, but no agreement has been reached.
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