One minute, $470K: Costly bureaucracy drains Iraq’s budget

Shafaq News – Baghdad

Iraq is pouring vast sums into an underperforming state bureaucracy because civil service rules reward attendance and discipline rather than output, an economic development expert warned on Saturday.

Khalid al-Jabri, head of the Osoul Foundation for Economic Development and Sustainability, told Shafaq News that administrative laws governing public employees are “disciplinary, not performance-based,” producing “a low-efficiency, high-cost apparatus with weak developmental impact.”

He said the public sector now includes around 5.6 million employees, whose monthly salaries amount to 6 trillion dinars (about $4.5B), excluding the Kurdistan Region.

Al-Jabri outlined the scale of the financial burden, noting that one minute of government work costs 617 million dinars (about $470k), while one hour costs 37 billion dinars (about $28M). A full working day, he added, drains 296 billion dinars (about $225M) from the state budget.

Even short internal meetings, he said, carry high costs. A 10-minute meeting in some state bodies costs about 2 billion dinars (about $1.5M), with outcomes that rarely justify the expense. A 20-minute break or breakfast period costs 3.7 billion dinars (about $2.8M) per day, while official courtesies and social interactions amount to 6.2 billion dinars (about $4.7M) for just 10 minutes.

“The real issue is not salaries,” al-Jabri said. “The problem is that time is paid for, but results are missing.”