ERBIL, Kurdistan Region — The Iraqi government has sent salaries to employees working at the Kurdistan Region's dams. Additionally, some medical supplies are being sent by Baghdad.
Akram Ahmed Rasul, the director-general of the dams in the Kurdistan Region told Rudaw on Wednesday that the Iraqi government sent November salaries to dam employees last week.
He said that the federal government has only sent salaries for dam employees, but the salaries were complete and according to Baghdad’s system.
Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi on Tuesday evening said in during a news conference that Baghdad had started paying salaries of the Kurdistan Region employees, firstly those of the water resources employees.
He added that the Iraqi government is currently checking the names of employees within the education and health ministries.
KRG Minister of Agriculture and Water Resources Abdulstar Majid told Rudaw in November that they have been trying for nearly a year to ensure that salaries of Kurdistan Region dam employees are paid by the Iraqi government.
There are 17 dams across the Kurdistan Region, which supply much of the water to Iraq. Dukan and Darbandikhan. Dukan holds nearly 7 billion cubic-meters of water and Darbandikhan has 3 billion cubic-meters. There are nearly 400 employees and managers working at dams in the Kurdistan Region.
Additionally, “some medical supplies” have been received in Sulaimani, Dr. Miran Mohammed, the director-general of Sulaimani Health Department told Rudaw on Wednesday.
“Some medical supplies have been sent by Baghdad to Sulaimani, and we are expecting other medicines to be sent,” he said.
Technocrats from the Kurdistan Region have been meeting this week in Baghdad with Iraqis including the ministers of interior and health. They are the first official meetings between the two governments since the Kurdistan Region held an Iraqi-opposed independence referendum in September.
“The amount is not that much to account for the pharmacies in our hospitals. But it is better than sending nothing. The supply consists mostly of tablets, syrups and other medications. But we think they will send cancer medicine too in a near future,” added Mohammed.
Baghdad’s initiatives follow a statement last week indicating the Iraqi government would begin paying groups of some civil servants as their payrolls are audited beginning with groups like teachers and essential security personnel.
Tensions between Erbil and Baghdad remain strained after Iraqi forces including Iran-backed Hashd al-Shaabi paramilitaries took control of disputed or Kurdistani areas such as oil-rich Kirkuk in October. Both capitals claim the areas.
The Kurdistan Regional Government has not received its 17 percent share of the Iraqi federal budget since early 2014, namely because of disputes over the Kurdistan Region exporting oil to the global markets.
Iraq’s draft 2018 budget proposes the KRG receiving 12.6 percent.
KRG Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani has said the people should realize that the KRG’s revenues “have been slashed by half” since the loss of the oil-fields in Kirkuk in mid-October.
A representative of the International Monetary Fund told Rudaw on December 22 that Iraq's 2018 budget share proposals "do not suffice in our view to cover the needs of the Kurdistan Regional Government.”
People in Sulaimani and Halabja provinces staged demonstrations through the week of December 18 which protested a lack of salaries — many of which have been delayed including those of teachers for years.
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