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ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – The Change Movement (Gorran) on Sunday called on the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) to speed up the referral of a pension and salary systems reform bill to parliament, a day after Prime Minister Masrour Barzani addressed the Kurdistan Region public on progress made by the current cabinet in its first 100 days in office.
Gorran’s media office issued a statement in response to the prime minister’s Saturday night televised speech which detailed progress on anti-corruption and reform measures.
"We believe the reform steps have not yet met the expectations of the calls of the people of the Kurdistan Region," the statement read, calling on the KRG to "to speed up the steps, make them more effective" in order to serve the people of the Region.
The KRG sent a reform package to parliament to be debated and passed back in August 2018. However, the previous parliament did not pass the bill, due to disagreements among parliamentary blocs. Senior Gorran official Ali Hama Salih said in April that the bill was supposed to have been passed within 30 days of the government taking office.
The task was therefore left to the current cabinet, which is amending the previous government's reform package before sending it back to the parliament to be passed as law. The project aims to reform the Kurdistan Region’s pension and salary systems.
Changes to be made to the package will include decreased salaries for high-ranking officials, increased pensions for retired civil sector workers, and the removal of ghost employees from the KRG payroll. The government will rely on a series of tools to enforce the measures, including a biometric system to determine the actual number of its employees, according to Prime Minister Barzani.
Sulaimani-based Gorran formed as a Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) breakaway in 2009. Running on a platform of political transparency and anti-corruption, the party achieved remarkable success in its early years. It came second only to the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) in the 2013 Kurdistan parliamentary elections.
The party’s media office statement reiterated that a condition of Gorran’s choice to move from the opposition to government was the passing of the pension and salary system reform bill.
"The Change Movement has a comprehensive political program viewing the question as the priority and on that basis we decided to be part of the Kurdistan Regional Government's cabinet," its statement read.
Gorran’s media office issued a statement in response to the prime minister’s Saturday night televised speech which detailed progress on anti-corruption and reform measures.
"We believe the reform steps have not yet met the expectations of the calls of the people of the Kurdistan Region," the statement read, calling on the KRG to "to speed up the steps, make them more effective" in order to serve the people of the Region.
The KRG sent a reform package to parliament to be debated and passed back in August 2018. However, the previous parliament did not pass the bill, due to disagreements among parliamentary blocs. Senior Gorran official Ali Hama Salih said in April that the bill was supposed to have been passed within 30 days of the government taking office.
The task was therefore left to the current cabinet, which is amending the previous government's reform package before sending it back to the parliament to be passed as law. The project aims to reform the Kurdistan Region’s pension and salary systems.
Changes to be made to the package will include decreased salaries for high-ranking officials, increased pensions for retired civil sector workers, and the removal of ghost employees from the KRG payroll. The government will rely on a series of tools to enforce the measures, including a biometric system to determine the actual number of its employees, according to Prime Minister Barzani.
Sulaimani-based Gorran formed as a Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) breakaway in 2009. Running on a platform of political transparency and anti-corruption, the party achieved remarkable success in its early years. It came second only to the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) in the 2013 Kurdistan parliamentary elections.
The party’s media office statement reiterated that a condition of Gorran’s choice to move from the opposition to government was the passing of the pension and salary system reform bill.
"The Change Movement has a comprehensive political program viewing the question as the priority and on that basis we decided to be part of the Kurdistan Regional Government's cabinet," its statement read.
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