ERBIL, Kurdistan Region — The salaries of Kurdistan Region civil servants will be distributed without cuts from this month, Prime Minister Masrour Barzani said in a press conference on Sunday, saying that continuing to pay salaries in full will largely depend on the federal government sending the Kurdistan Region’s share of the budget.
“After a long time, the federal government sent a budget to the Kurdistan Region for this month, which can fill the gap there was for distributing salaries to a large extent,” said the PM.
“From this month we will distribute salaries of the Kurdistan [Region’s] people without cuts, and I hope the federal government will commit to keeping their promise to send that budget share so that we can, in the upcoming months, distribute people’s salaries without cuts, but it depends a lot on if the federal government will implement their promise or not,” he added.
Erbil has struggled to pay civil servant salaries in full and on time for more than five years, due to the war against the Islamic State (ISIS), disputes with Baghdad and a drop in oil prices.
The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) announced “temporary” measures to reduce salaries and allowances of higher-earning government employees in June last year, with employees earning more than 300,000 Iraqi dinars per month hit with a 21 percent pay cut.
Several people died in December after security forces cracked down on protesters in Sulaimani and Halabja demonstrating against salary delays.
The reorganization and increase of local revenues was another reason the government was able to make the decision to distribute salaries in full, Samir Hawrami, spokesperson for the Region’s Deputy Prime Minister said on Facebook on Sunday.
Baghdad sent 200 billion dinars to the KRG earlier this month, the finance ministry said on July 11.
However, when Iraq's parliamentary integrity committee announced in June that Baghdad will send the payment to Erbil, Iraqi PM Mustafa al-Kadhimi later said the payment was an advance so the KRG could pay its civil servants.
“We hope we can, in the future, distribute salaries as they are, but I will reiterate, it will largely depend on the federal government committing to their promise to provide the budget share,” added Barzani.
Iraq’s federal budget was passed by the Iraqi parliament in late March after intense debate and more than three months after it was approved by the cabinet. One contentious point was Erbil’s share and requirements for the KRG to hand over oil.
Baghdad sending the Kurdistan Region its budget share is conditional on Erbil fulfilling its commitments, which include handing over 250,000 barrels of oil per day, paying back money it borrowed from the Iraqi Trade Bank, sending non-oil revenues and prioritizing paying the salaries of its civil servants and Peshmerga before any other spending.
Updated 4:00pm
