ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – The head of the Change Movement (Gorran) parliamentary bloc has said that the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) is not $27 billion in debt, as controversially declared last week by Prime Minister Masrour Barzani. In response to the announcement of debt by the prime minister that sparked "fear among the people," Ali Hama Saleh offered of a breakdown of debt numbers that put forward that the KRG is only $7 billion in debt, to companies, contractors, banks and overseas institutions. "From a legal and scientific perspective, it should not even be called debt as they are interest-free," Saleh told Rudaw TV's Rudawi Emro program. "The KRG has used half a billion dollars of people's money in banks and a half a billion from contractors. The government has withdrawn another $ 2.5 billion of its own money. As for [debts to] Turkey, of $2 billion, the government has repaid more than $1.5 billion." The KRG is also currently indebted $3 billion dollars to domestic energy and infrastructure giant Mass Group Holding for their electricity operation in across the Kurdistan Region, he said. Unpaid civil servant salaries - which government has blamed on Baghdad for years of withholding its share of Erbil's federal budget - forms the largest chunk of KRG debt, according to Saleh. "The last time I checked with them [the government], they said they are indebted $11 billion to the civil servants." A top government official speaking to Rudaw on condition of anonymity on Tuesday put the amount of pending civil servant pay at $10 billion. According to Saleh, the KRG must take its previously promised steps to collect debts and taxes owed from private companies - which he said adds up to between $4.5 and 5 billion - to help "ease the burden" on the government The Gorran parliament bloc leader said he had no information on the remaining $9 billion in debt claimed by PM Barzani. However, he hinted at another $10 billion dollars that the government took from the private banks until the end of 2016 - an amount exempted from Saleh's debt calculations because it is currently being repaid in monthly installments by Iraq's central bank. "This subject has to a large extent been solved... The private banks have been linked with the [Iraqi] Central Bank and not associated with the KRG. On a monthly basis, these banks are paid back in installments by the Central Bank amounting to $10 million including from the KRG's budget share as well." In what could be part of the $10 billion bank payments, the anonymous government source told Rudaw that $3 billion of debt was owed to the Trade Bank of Iraq. Parliament speaker Rewaz Fayaq took to Facebook on Monday night to also downplay the debt claims, saying the government is "not indebted a single dollar" - other than to civil servants, contractors, businessmen and investors, "many of whom went bankrupt". A discussion between government and parliament over the debt claims has yet to be had, Fayaq said, but will be broached after the Eid holiday break. The government source told Rudaw that no loan guarantee with interest has been made with the World Bank or other global financial firms, with money to cover government spending only borrowed from domestic private banks. Rudaw English reached out to KRG spokesperson Jotiar Adil on WhatsApp for comment on Fayaq and Saleh's comments, but he responded only to say "I'm sorry".
Kurdistan10-06-2026Fixed $92 million Baghdad revenue share not viable amid regional tensions: PM Barzani
