Saad Hadithi, an Iraqi government spokesperson, told Iraq’s state TV Al-Iraqiya on Sunday that “in the next two days, Monday and Tuesday, the salaries of the education and health ministries will be paid by the Iraqi Federal Government.”
However, the KRG finance ministry has announced the money sent to the Kurdistan Region will not be given exclusively to the health and education departments. Instead it will be distributed across all ministries.
The finance ministry said a share of the 317 billion dinars sent by the Iraqi government will also go to the Peshmerga and security agencies.
The KRG has said it needs 900 billion dinars to pay all its civil servants without relying on the saving salary system, which the KRG introduced as part of its austerity measures to stave off the financial crisis.
If the salary saving system is maintained, the KRG says it needs 590 billion dinars.
The KRG launched a massive institutional and financial reform plan at the start of 2016, including austerity measures, pay cuts, and a cleanup of duplicate names on its payroll in order to reduce the budget deficit.
The government has said it would repay the amount cut at a later stage through a savings account.
The finance ministry added it hopes Baghdad continues to send the region’s employees their salaries.
The ministry added the KRG will meet after the Newroz holidays to assess the money from Baghdad, the region’s oil revenues and other domestic incomes, and the list of payrolls.
Following talks with the head of the Iraqi financial auditing board, Viyan Mohammed, director of planning in the KRG’s ministry of health, told Rudaw some Kurdistan Region civil servants would receive their salaries before Newroz.
Teachers across the region held strike actions in recent months demanding immediate payment of their salaries.
Financial auditors were sent by Baghdad to the Kurdistan Region to comb through the KRG’s payrolls.
Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi has repeatedly pledged to pay KRG civil servants. Earlier in the week he twice said he would pay both ministries before Newroz.
Newroz festivities are held by Kurds annually on March 21 to mark Kurdish new year. Newroz literally means “new day.”
Abadi has said the payment of salaries is a “Newroz gift” for the employees of KRG.
It comes as Baghdad announces the reopening of the Kurdistan Region’s airports to international flights. All flights were rerouted via Baghdad when the ban was imposed last September following the independence referendum.
Last updated at 11:58 p.m.
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