ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) paid its employees just eight months in 2020, with Baghdad sending funds to cover 36 percent of the payments, the KRG stated on Saturday.
According to figures released by the KRG’s Media and Information Department, Erbil did not pay its workforce in April, July, September, or November – months Baghdad did not send funds. In December, the regional government shouldered the entire payroll itself.
Over the year, the KRG paid out over 6.5 trillion dinars in salaries, covering 63.8 percent itself and the remainder 36.1 percent coming from Baghdad.
Erbil has been heavily reliant on its federal budget share from Baghdad to pay its civil servants and undertake service projects since 2003. In 2014, Baghdad stopped sending the funds fully and on time after oil prices fell, war broke out with the Islamic State (ISIS), and relations between the federal and regional governments soured over Erbil’s decision to export its oil independently.
Occasional payments were sent after heated negotiations. In December 2019, Baghdad agreed to send Erbil a 12.67 percent share of the federal budget in exchange for 250,000 barrels of oil per day. Neither side fully abided by the agreement, however. Baghdad made irregular payments and Erbil failed to hand over oil.
Baghdad failed to pass a budget in 2020 because of political turmoil, record low oil prices, and the coronavirus pandemic. In November, Iraqi lawmakers passed the Fiscal Deficit Coverage Bill approving loans to cover civil servant salaries for the last two months of the year. The bill passed with a majority vote, despite a walkout staged by Kurdish MPs, angered that Erbil is obliged to hand over an unspecified amount of oil in exchange for funds – a clause they said was not in the original bill.
Suffering with pay cuts and delays in getting their monthly cheques, angry KRG civil servants staged a protest in Sulaimani on December 2. Demonstrations quickly spread to other areas of the province, Halabja province, as well as the Garmiyan and Raparin administrations. Security forces were deployed in large numbers and used tear gas, live and rubber bullets, and water cannons to end the protests.
Eleven people were killed during clashes between security forces and protestors, including a Peshmerga who died of a stroke while on duty.
Deputy KRG Prime Minister Qubad Talabani led negotiations with Baghdad over the 2021 budget, which was approved by Iraq's Council of Ministers on December 21. The bill, which requires Erbil to hand over oil revenues to Baghdad, has received the approval of "the different political parties," Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi said during a press conference in Baghdad.
“Some Iraqi parliamentarians have spoken harshly about the Kurdistan Region and threatened it, and a small group has been on the side of peace,” MP Peshawa Hawrami told Rudaw following a meeting between the KRG delegation to Baghdad and Kurdish parties.
The Iraqi parliament held a session on Saturday for the first reading of the 2021 budget bill.
The KRG is expected to pass a budget bill this year, the first time in seven years. Erbil has also taken steps to reduce its bloated payroll, including instituting a biometric registration system for all employees, which identified more than 10,000 illegal salary payments that were struck off last week.
