CENTRAL NEWS
Lawmaker of the Council of Representatives Yousif al-Kilaby said on Tuesday that one hundred signatures had been collected from the Council of Representatives’ lawmakers to embed clauses in the Iraqi 2021 draft law so that the Iraqi Government will pay the Kurdistan Region’s civil servants directly without needing to pay the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG).
During an interview with NRT, al-Kilaby said: “In the coming year’s draft law, the Region’s public servants will receive Iraqi Government’s payments through electronic cards,” he said. “100 lawmakers have signed to fix that in the [Iraq] 2021 draft budget law.”
“The Council of Representatives has not cut off the salaries of the Region’s public servants. The [Kurdistan] Regional Government has tried to make agreements with some Iraqi [federal] personalities and receive money, rather than making a serious agreement with the Iraqi Government,” he said.
KRG sells its own oils and receives its own income before demanding additional payments from Iraq
On November 12, the Council of Representatives approved a bill to borrow 12 trillion Iraqi dinars (some $10 billion) in internal and external loans to finance the salary payments to public servants and other expenditures for the last three months in 2020.
The KDP representatives who earn income from several of the busiest customs gates walked out of a debate on the bill in protest of the Kurdistan Region’s claims from the loans.
On Sunday, the Iraqi Government Spokesperson Ahmad Mulla Talal said that the federal government is committed to sending 320 billion IQD to the burdening “Kurdistan Region”. He also threatened to file a lawsuit with the UN Security Council if the KRG does not hand over its oil to the Iraqi state marketer State Oil Marketing Organization (SOMO). “We will not let some Kurdish figures and leaders take over the Region’s incomes,” he said.
The spokesperson expressed that“It is not possible that three Iraqi governorate [Kurdish areas] sell oil independently and wait for money to be sent from other governorates…they [Kurdish leaders] should know how to spend the region’s local and oil revenues.”
He also hit out at the KRG authority for not being sincere with the Iraqi Government and the Council of Representatives.
In April, Baghdad cut off all budget transfers to Hewler in retaliation for its failure to send the federal government any of the oil it was required to under the 2019 federal budget law, causing a severe disruption in the Region’s finances.
The KRG is falling behind in paying its public sector employees on time and in full for months.
The two sides reached a temporary agreement in early August where Baghdad would send 320 billion Iraqi dinars, in return for bringing customs procedures at the Region’s international border crossings under federal control.
During a press conference on Sunday, Kurdistan Region President Nechirvan Barzani said the Region is poised to hand over the whole of its oil to the federal government so that the latter transfers 900 billion Iraqi dinars ($753.87 million) to the Region on a monthly basis.
Barzani buys palaces in Beverley Hills while workers starve waiting for Iraq
As civil servants starve under the corrupt KDP rule, the luxurious lifestyles of members of the Barzani family show to what extent the profits of the Region are being exploited.
Recently, Mansour and Masrour Barzani, the two most prominent sons of former Iraqi Kurdistan president Masoud Barzani, paid for two of the most expensive mansions in Beverley Hills in an all-cash transaction. There are also claims that Masrour Barzani was the anonymous buyer of a mansion in McLean, Virginia, that ranks as one of the largest homes in the entire state.
In 2012, local reporters detailed that Mansour Barzani once lost $3.2 million in a single night while gambling at a Dubai casino.
Foothil Manor was reportedly occupied by Sodabeh “Soodi” Khoshdaman last year. The U.K.-based woman is reportedly a mistress of one of Masoud Barzani’s sons, and the mother of a boy carrying the Barzani surname
About 5.5% of the population in the “Kurdistan region” or southern Kurdistan, subsists on less than $80 per month, and while the region is economically prosperous compared to the rest of Iraq, even the reasonably successful Kurdish doctors only earn the monthly equivalent of a couple of thousands USD.
