ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - As the government’s inability to pay its employees drags on for another month, civil servants from a variety of sectors went on strike on Sunday in multiple areas in southern Kurdistan Region - Sulaimani and Halabja provinces, Raparin and Garmiyan administrations, and Koya and Chamchamal districts.
A group of Chamchamal’s public service employees walked off the job over the Kurdistan Regional Government’s (KRG) continued failure to pay their salaries on time, including healthcare workers at Shahid Peshraw hospital and Charmo health center.
Students at the University of Charmo also announced that they will not be attending lectures until April 1 as they have not received their monthly stipends, and threatened to extend their protest if the allowances are not paid before that date. Consequently, university lecturers and staff did not attend classes either.
A group of students and staff at the University of Sulaimani and the province’s polytechnic university also did not attend classes for the same reasons.
“The students’ families have not received their salaries, and one cannot study with empty pockets,” Harman Jamil, spokesperson for Charmo university student representatives, told Rudaw.
“The students have not received any stipends either, while students in Erbil and Duhok have,” he added.
Twana Najaf, head of the KRG’s administration and finance office, told Rudaw on Saturday that some universities have received funds for two monthly allowances while others have only received one, stressing that there has been no discrimination between the provinces in distributing the stipends, but that the payment depends on cash availability in the banks.
Healthcare workers, university lecturers and students, and other public service employees in Halabja are also on strike in protest over their unpaid wages.
Halabja’s general hospital is the only public hospital in its area. Its employees have been on strike for a week leaving many patients with no choice but to visit private clinics and pay large sums of money to receive medical care.
A large number of public service employees, including healthcare workers, went on strike in Garmiyan and Raparin administrations as well, where civil servants have not been paid for over 50 days.
Strikes were also reported in several directorates and public offices in Koya. The strikes are expected to expand to the rest of the district’s government institutions in the coming days.
The Iraqi Federal Supreme Court in February transferred the responsibility of paying Kurdistan Region civil servants from Erbil to Baghdad, following the KRG’s failure to distribute wages on time and in full, despite multiple loans from the federal government.
Iraq’s finance ministry has transferred around 560 billion dinars to the KRG’s bank account since March 11 to pay February salaries of the Region’s employees, excluding the security forces. The KRG has yet to distribute the wages, calling on Baghdad to send the full payment.
Kurdistan Region civil servants were only paid for nine months in 2023 and since the start of the new year have only been paid their salaries for January.