Patients, students, civil servants lose in Erbil, Baghdad money row
ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Public health services are limited and classrooms are shut in some areas of the Kurdistan Region as hundreds of public employees went on strike to demand their wages that have not been paid for two months.
On Tuesday, a day before the start of the new academic year, the Sulaimani branch of the Kurdistan Teachers’ Union announced they would not teach classes until they were paid their salaries for the months of July and August.
On Wednesday, the Sulaimani Health Workers Syndicate announced that they were stopping work at hospitals and health centres, though vital services will continue including emergency rooms, children and maternity wards, the burn hospital, the blood bank, kidney dialysis, intensive care units, ambulances, and Hiwa hospital for cancer patients, according to Hawzhin Osman, the head of the syndicate who announced the strike action in a press conference.
The strike means people must turn to private hospitals or clinics if they get sick, though that option is too expensive for some.
“I cannot go to private hospitals, I cannot go to clinics. I can only go to the big [public] hospital. If not for that, I would have to sit at home and wait until God solves my problem,” Rahim Salih, a 65-year-old from the Garmiyan administration town of Kalar, told Rudaw’s Hunar Hamid.
Salih, father of four, said that one of his children fell sick a while ago and needed surgery, which donors paid for. He said that he will not resort to private hospitals if he needs treatment, since he cannot afford them.
Health workers say they are keeping essential services available.
“We are on strike, but we are trying to treat emergency cases such as stabs, shootings and traffic accidents as a humanitarian act so that no one dies,” Mohammed Samad, an employee at Kalar’s Shahid Hazhar Emergency Hospital, said on Wednesday.
The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) has failed to pay its civil servants - teachers and healthcare workers like Samad - on time and in full for nearly a decade due to financial crises caused by disputes with Baghdad, low oil prices, and a stoppage of oil exports through Turkey. Public sector employees have not been paid for the months of July and August following several failed deals with Baghdad.
The health workers strike in Sulaimani is the second one this summer. On August 1, hundreds of junior and resident doctors in Sulaimani and Halabja went on strike after the government had not paid their wages for over 40 days.
Iraq's 2023 budget was supposed to end the years-long dispute between Erbil and Baghdad over the Kurdistan Region’s share of federal funds, but Kurdish leaders say problems still exist. KRG Prime Minister Masrour Barzani tweeted that Baghdad should be sending 1.375 trillion dinars monthly, but sent nothing in July, August, or September. Baghdad, however, says that the KRG owes the federal government three times more than its share of the budget.
During a televised sit-down with journalists on Monday, Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia’ al-Sudani said the budget does not oblige the federal government to pay the salaries of the Kurdistan Region’s public servants. “We have the budget law. Go read Article 12 and the other Articles relating to the [Kurdistan] Region, there is no such thing called financing payroll. There is only financing the Kurdistan Region’s share, which is 12.67 percent,” he said.
On Thursday, PM Barzani travelled to Baghdad for a marathon of budget meetings with Iraqi officials and influential leaders after which he said he was “very optimistic” that the Iraqi government will make “good decisions” about Kurdistan’s financial share.
Sudani and his cabinet will hold their weekly meeting on Sunday and they are expected to vote on sending 800 billion Iraqi dinars (close to $610 million) monthly to the KRG and if approved the amount will be a “loan” to pay public sector salaries, Harem Kamal Agha, a Kurdish member of the Iraqi parliament, told Rudaw’s Sangar Abdulrahman on Saturday.
Earlier this month, Baghdad said it would send Erbil 500 billion Iraqi dinars. Days later, the federal finance ministry announced it would be signing a loan agreement with the KRG.
The KRG needs 940 billion Iraqi dinars monthly to pay its employees. Agha said that the balance of funds will come from the KRG’s internal revenues.