Parliament session on abolishing pay cuts ends with no outcome

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region — Members of parliament left the halls of legislature early Tuesday morning after an almost 18-hour session that started on Monday to commit the government to ending salary cuts, with some parliamentarians telling Rudaw the meeting was “unproductive.” 

“It wasn’t convincing for us unfortunately, because we demanded the salary cuts be abolished and we tried a lot, 56 MPs signed on to this [session]. The session today should have seen the Kurdistan Parliament make a decision over the salary cuts, which was an illegal government decision, to be abolished,” New Generation MP Kawa Abdulqadir told Rudaw after the session.

“Unfortunately the speaker of parliament didn’t put our bill to vote and eventually it wasn’t resolved to commit the government to put an end to pay cuts to the Kurdistan Region’s civil servants,” he added.

The parliament session, which was set to begin at 11 am on Monday, lasted until early morning on Tuesday. One of the many topics that took the longest to discuss was filling the shortage to public employees’ salaries. Seven senior officials and ministers attended the session. 

“It was an unproductive session, 18 hours of talking and no one knows what the result of this session was,” Abubakir Haladni, a Kurdistan Islamic Union (KIU) MP said.

“Their talks are repetitive, whatever there is, it’s just ink on paper, it’s just talk and nothing else,” Shayan Askari, a Change (Gorran) MP said.

“For their part, the delegation of the regional government clarified to the members of our parliament regarding the financial situation and the issue of pay cuts and how to fill the wage cuts,” among other issues, the parliament stated on Tuesday. 

MPs have several times called for these issues to be discussed. A parliament session on May 25 dedicated to discussing murder and suicide rates, turned into heated salary talks when Gorran MP Ali Hama Salih said “The finance ministry has not received enough funds to distribute salaries. Even with the 21 percent [cut]” to paychecks. His comments set off accusations of blame between the two ruling parties. 

“The session might take two to three days, it’s not just today, because we can’t finish all the topics in the order of business just today,” Hemin Hawrami, deputy speaker of parliament told reporters before the session.

The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in June 2020 announced plans to reduce salaries and allowances of higher-earning government employees.

According to the KRG statement, the measure was supposed to be only “temporary,” affecting salaries for the month of June in 2020.

The minister of Finance and Economy, Awat Sheikh Janab said during the parliament session that the reason they could pay salaries of the last five months of 2019, as well as the beginning of 2020, in full was because they had received 453 billion dinars from Baghdad. “The times that Iraq hasn’t sent money, our deficit has been 450 billion dinars every month,” Janab stated.

The budget is always a problematic issue between Erbil and Baghdad. The 2021 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.

Because of the budget disputes and financial woes, the KRG has been unable to pay its civil servants on time or in full. Parliament speaker Rewaz Fayaq told Rudaw on June 14 that the legislature will not sit again unless it’s to discuss the budget and salaries. 

The Kurdistan Region has yet to receive its budget share from Baghdad, meaning KRG employees who make more than 300,000 Iraqi dinars (approximately $200) per month will see their paychecks cut by 21 percent.

Amanj Rahim, secretary of the KRG council of ministers, during the parliament session that ended Tuesday, revealed that now “the government is $31.6 billion in debt.”

Kazim Faruq, a new generation MP, was prevented from entering parliament hall, he told reporters on Tuesday. 

There was a majority vote to prevent him from entering parliament after he threw a shoe at Parliament Speaker Rewaz Fayaq on March 31, saying discussions in parliament should be about salaries. He has been banned from entering parliament ever since. A decision was made that he can re-enter parliament if he apologizes, which he has so far refused to do.