ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Iraq’s Prime Minister Mohammed Shia' al-Sudani has formed a committee to establish a syndicate for the country's delivery drivers that will bring them under a pension system, officials said.
“With the establishment of the syndicate, all 400,000 workers will be registered under a social insurance network,” Hussein al-Quraishi, a member of the committee representing the Iraqi Workers’ Syndicate, told Rudaw on Monday, adding that the body will consists of 16 members.
“The purpose behind the formation of the syndicate is to register delivery drivers for social insurance,” he said.
Labor Ministry Spokesperson Hassan Khawam told Rudaw that delivery workers will become eligible for retirement payments after the age of 63, provided they have worked for a minimum of 15 years and made regular monthly contributions to the insurance program.
Khawam explained that private sector workers are expected to pay five percent of their monthly salary, while employers will contribute 12 percent and the government eight percent. Freelance workers fall into several categories, paying between 17,500 and 87,500 dinars (around $13 to $62).
According to Khawam, pensions will vary depending on contributions, ranging from 400,000 dinars to 1.45 million dinars (about $285 to $1,035).
In the Kurdistan Region, pensioners have faced months-long delays in payments due to ongoing disputes between Erbil and Baghdad. More than 24,000 retirees have gone without salaries for the past nine months, the spokesperson for the Kurdistan Retirees Union, Sadiq Osman, told Rudaw in April. He added that out of more than 25,000 people who retired in the past three years, fewer than 1,000 had completed their pension certification.
Comments
Rudaw moderates all comments submitted on our website. We welcome comments which are relevant to the article and encourage further discussion about the issues that matter to you. We also welcome constructive criticism about Rudaw.
To be approved for publication, however, your comments must meet our community guidelines.
We will not tolerate the following: profanity, threats, personal attacks, vulgarity, abuse (such as sexism, racism, homophobia or xenophobia), or commercial or personal promotion.
Comments that do not meet our guidelines will be rejected. Comments are not edited – they are either approved or rejected.
Post a comment