Iraqi Parliament forms special committee to oversee Kurdistan’s financial entitlements

Shafaq News/ The Financial Committee in the Iraqi Parliament decided to form a special committee to follow up on the financial entitlements of the Kurdistan Region for the years 2024 and 2025.

According to a letter signed by the head of the Parliamentary Finance Committee, Atwan Al-Atwani, dated January 11, the committee will be led by his first deputy, Ahmed Muthar Al-Jubouri.

During a press conference on Saturday, following an extraordinary meeting between the regional government and the Kurdistan Region's (KRG) representatives in Baghdad regarding employee salaries, the KRG Spokesperson, Peshawa Hawramani, urged the federal government to ensure the full payment of salaries for public sector employees in the region for the current year.

Hawramani added that meeting attendees called on the federal government to send the region's share of the federal budget for this year, not just monthly salaries.

“So far, less than 7% of the region’s financial entitlements have been sent, and the federal government has not sent the December 2024 salaries for Kurdistan, despite promises to do so,” he revealed.

The KRG Spokesperson further emphasized his government's will to resolve the disputes with the federal government this year, confirming that” Baghdad does not treat Kurdistan as a constitutional federal entity.”

He also mentioned that the regional government had submitted all statistics regarding revenues and the number of employees in the region to Baghdad, stressing that Kurdistan’s rights are safeguarded in the proposed amendments to the current year’s budget law.

Notably, the salary issue in the Kurdistan Region has remained unresolved for years due to ongoing disputes with the federal government.

Over the past two years, following the suspension of oil exports from the Region via the Turkish port of Ceyhan, the federal government has been providing salaries as "loans."

In February2024, the Federal Supreme Court instructed Baghdad to directly pay the salaries of the Kurdistan Region’s employees, bypassing the Kurdistan Regional Government, after months of delays.

the Iraqi Prime Minister, Mohammed Shia Al-Sudani stressed that the salary issue is not political but highlighted that the Kurdistan Region has not fulfilled any of the provisions in the Budget Law.

He further clarified that no additional funds would be allocated for the Region’s salaries, confirming that only 760 billion dinars (roughly 608 million USD) would be disbursed, in line with the Region’s fixed share of 12.67%.