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ERBIL, Kurdistan Region — Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi met with Deputy Parliament Speaker Basheer Haddad on Thursday to discuss the Kurdistan Region’s share of the federal budget, promising to deliver October salaries for Kurdistan Region civil servants.
On November 12, Iraqi MPs passed the Fiscal Deficit Coverage Bill to approve loans for civil servant salaries in Iraq and the Kurdistan Region for the last two months of this year. The bill passed with a majority vote, despite a walk-out staged by Kurdish MPs, who were angered that Erbil is obliged to hand over an unspecified amount of oil in exchange for funds- a clause they say was not in the original bill.
The passage of the law was opposed by both Kurdish officials in Erbil and Baghdad, and deepens economic woes for civil servants in the Kurdistan Region, who have not been paid for several months of the year.
“The PM showed that he is sympathetic towards the Kurdistan Region employees’ salary problem, he considers them as part of Iraqi employees and it is their right to get their salaries,” Haddad told Rudaw’s Mustafa Goran. “He said what we are giving to the Kurdistan Region is way less than what they initially deserved.”
“He told me that in the previous days he had met with Iraqi leaders and will continue to do so in the coming days in order to get them on board for sending the Kurdistan Region’s share of the federal budget,” he added.
The meeting came the day after Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) ministers sent an official letter to Baghdad, asking for civil servant salary funding for May, June, July and October.
The Kurdistan Region is heavily dependent on its share of the Iraqi budget, and the KRG has said it cannot pay civil servants without its fair share of federal government money.
The KRG has struggled to pay civil servant salaries in full and on time for five years due to the war against the Islamic State (ISIS), a drop in oil prices and disputes with the federal government.
Members of the Sairoon alliance, led by the influential Shiite cleric Muqtada al- Sadr, and the Nasr coalition led by former Iraqi PM Haidar al-Abadi, are opposed to Kadhimi sending the Kurdistan Region’s share of the budget without receiving oil.
“The prime minister cannot do this unless he has legal ground, right now this is not legal unless the KRG hands over their income,” Sairoon’s Muhammad Ghazi told Rudaw. “The parliament will not accept this and the prime minister will be questioned if he does this.”
“The prime minister cannot send over that money to the Kurdistan Region,” the Nasr Coalition’s Falah Abdulkareem told Rudaw. “If he does, he will be sued.”
Kurdistan Region President Nechirvan Barzani criticized the decision to pass the law in a November 15 press conference, claimed it was Baghdad’s “biggest failure in administrating this country.”
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