Kurdistan
Deputy Prime Minister Spokesman, Samir Hawrami interviewed by Bestoon Khalid on Rudaw. Photo: Rudaw TV
ERBIL, Kurdistan Region — The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) biometric registration initiative, a part of an economic reform plan, lead to thousands of pay-cuts, according to an official.
“Before starting the biometric registration, we asked the General Directorates and Ministries for the lists. We realized 1,350,000 people were receiving Kurdistan Region’s salaries,” Deputy Prime Minister Spokesman Samir Hawrami said in an interview for Rudaw on November 9.
The biometric registrations lead to the suspending salaries of more than 16,505 people, according to Hawrami.
“When we started the registrations, we said we will cut illegal salaries, only 1,251,451 wage earners registered, that means 53,549 others didn’t. Most of them are illegal employees with one or two salaries, when they knew their salaries would be cut, they didn’t show up for registration,” Hawrami told Rudaw.
The large public servant numbers are due to the private sectors’ non-competitiveness as opposed to the public sector, Hawrami claimed.
The biometric registration is part of the KRG’s long-term public salary reform bill passed by parliament mid-January.
Its main aims include the elimination of ghost employees and the claiming of more than one civil service salary, a reduction of pensions of MPs and other high ranking officials, and standardized retirement regulations. Another of its main targets is to eliminate illegally retired individuals, who have never served in security institutions or in government but get a retirement salary for being part of party patronage networks, from the payroll.
Around 1,251,451 people receive KRG salaries; including 200,000 servicemen and women in Asayish, Peshmerga, and police, 551,085 civil servants, 242,269 pensioners, 98,937 heirs to martyrs and political prisoners, 159,160 social security recipients, according to the Spokesman.
According to data by the KRG, 106,839 people receive double or triple salaries.
Those with their salaries suspended will be given a month to appeal in case of error in decision by the committee.
Over the next phase of implementation of the Reform of Pensions, Salaries, Allowances, Grants and other Benefits bill, legal procedures will be decided in the upcoming Council of Ministers meetings.
“Before starting the biometric registration, we asked the General Directorates and Ministries for the lists. We realized 1,350,000 people were receiving Kurdistan Region’s salaries,” Deputy Prime Minister Spokesman Samir Hawrami said in an interview for Rudaw on November 9.
The biometric registrations lead to the suspending salaries of more than 16,505 people, according to Hawrami.
“When we started the registrations, we said we will cut illegal salaries, only 1,251,451 wage earners registered, that means 53,549 others didn’t. Most of them are illegal employees with one or two salaries, when they knew their salaries would be cut, they didn’t show up for registration,” Hawrami told Rudaw.
The large public servant numbers are due to the private sectors’ non-competitiveness as opposed to the public sector, Hawrami claimed.
The biometric registration is part of the KRG’s long-term public salary reform bill passed by parliament mid-January.
Its main aims include the elimination of ghost employees and the claiming of more than one civil service salary, a reduction of pensions of MPs and other high ranking officials, and standardized retirement regulations. Another of its main targets is to eliminate illegally retired individuals, who have never served in security institutions or in government but get a retirement salary for being part of party patronage networks, from the payroll.
Around 1,251,451 people receive KRG salaries; including 200,000 servicemen and women in Asayish, Peshmerga, and police, 551,085 civil servants, 242,269 pensioners, 98,937 heirs to martyrs and political prisoners, 159,160 social security recipients, according to the Spokesman.
According to data by the KRG, 106,839 people receive double or triple salaries.
Those with their salaries suspended will be given a month to appeal in case of error in decision by the committee.
Over the next phase of implementation of the Reform of Pensions, Salaries, Allowances, Grants and other Benefits bill, legal procedures will be decided in the upcoming Council of Ministers meetings.
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