Error occured during this request! Please try again later.
ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - The second reading of a much-delayed contentious reform bill proposing changes to salary and pension systems is taking place in the Kurdistan Region parliament on Sunday.
The first reading of the bill on Reform of Pensions, Salaries, Allowances, Grants and other Benefits took place in the legislature on December 16, just five days after it was approved and sent to the parliament by the Council of Ministers after months of being put on hold.
The parliament initially passed the reform bill on February 27, 2018 that introduced reforms to the salaries and pensions of public employees, including Peshmerga forces, designed to prevent duplicate benefits and double-salary holders, as well as institutionalizing the pension program.
The bill, however, was never ratified due to widespread public protests against parliamentarians who were accused of effectively setting their own wages. The reform bill had originally set the minimum pension at 300,000 Iraqi dinars (about $253), while allocating 4 million dinars (about $3,375) as pensions for Kurdish MPs, and was largely rejected by the public.
The previous government cabinet and parliament did not manage to pass the bill due to disagreements among parliamentary blocs. The task was therefore left to the current cabinet.
Changes expected to be made to the package include decreased salaries for high-ranking officials, increased pensions for retired civil sector workers, and the removal of “ghost” employees from the KRG payroll. The government will rely on a series of tools to enforce the measures, including a biometric system to determine the actual number of its employees.
According to an MP from the Legal Committee in the parliament, "no substantial changes have been made" to the bill since its last reading.
"A major disagreement among some of the MPs is that the amended bill does not contain any sign that the pension of high ranking [officials] has been reduced," Rubar Ahmed, an MP from the parliament’s legal committee told Rudaw.
She added that the amended bill contain no age limit for a parliamentarian to retire.
"All MPs regardless of their age or years of service as parliamentarian will retire with 40 percent of their salaries," Rubar Ahmed told Rudaw.
A parliamentarian receives a monthly salary of 8,200,000 dinars (about $6,900). They receive a monthly pension of 3,280,000 dinars (about $2,700), according to Soran Omer, a Komal MP.
The government has not increased the minimum wage of civil servants from 300,000 ($252) to 400,000 dinars ($336), despite being a “main demand of the public," Omer added.
The KRG suffered economic woes in the past five years as its budget share was slashed by Baghdad, oil prices plummeted, and it dealt with a costly war and IDP crisis due to the conflict with the Islamic State (ISIS).
Comments
Rudaw moderates all comments submitted on our website. We welcome comments which are relevant to the article and encourage further discussion about the issues that matter to you. We also welcome constructive criticism about Rudaw.
To be approved for publication, however, your comments must meet our community guidelines.
We will not tolerate the following: profanity, threats, personal attacks, vulgarity, abuse (such as sexism, racism, homophobia or xenophobia), or commercial or personal promotion.
Comments that do not meet our guidelines will be rejected. Comments are not edited – they are either approved or rejected.
Post a comment