Shafaq News/ On Thursday, the Ministry of Finance and Economy in the Kurdistan Region announced plans to commence distributing salaries to public sector employees and workers in June, starting Sunday, July 7th.
In a statement, the ministry disclosed that a sum of 231,605,531,000 Iraqi dinars (about 177,418,151 USD) had been deposited into its account at the Erbil branch of the Central Bank of Iraq.
This funding is earmarked for families of martyrs, Anfal victims, political prisoners, disabled individuals, as well as civilian and military retirees.
This step came days after the Kurdistan Ministry of Finance submitted the payroll schedule for public sector employees for June to the Federal Ministry of Finance for funding.
Due to oil exports, the Kurdistan Region previously had independent funding that partly covered salaries. However, a dispute involving the federal government and Turkiye, the route through which oil was exported, has blocked this income source for the regional administration since March 2023.
Iraqi Kurdistan and Baghdad later reached a preliminary agreement for Kurdish oil sales to pass through the federal government. In exchange, the autonomous region will receive 12.6 percent of Iraq's public spending.
In a court ruling, the Kurdish administration was ordered to transfer "all its oil and non-oil revenues" to the federal government and undergo an audit of relevant accounts.
With oil revenues ceased, Kurdistan's current main revenue source is taxes collected at border crossings with neighboring countries, including Iran and Turkiye, two of Iraq's major regional trade partners.