Nechirvan Barzani, Iraqi Kurdistan region president, Erbil, January 2020. Photo: Presidency
HEWLÊR-Erbil, Iraq’s Kurdistan region,— Iraqi Kurdistan Region President Nechirvan Barzani’s office said on Tuesday that he had signed the recently passed pension and salary reform bill into law.
The legislation, which had been reintroduced into the Kurdistan Parliament late in 2019 after being returned to the cabinet for revisions, was passed on January 16, but lawmakers from the New Generation Movement (Newey Nwê), the Kurdistan Islamic Union KIU, and the Kurdistan Islamic Group KIG walked out of the session to protest the legislation, which they objected to on the grounds that it continued generous pension payments to senior officials and had ignored opposition amendments.
Several lawmakers have declined their parliamentary pensions.
“The law was the subject of consideration and scrutiny by the various classes and groups of Kurdistan Region,” Barzani’s office said in a statement.
“From the day of its arrival to the presidency of the Kurdistan Region, experts and specialists [working for] the presidency of the Region and the cabinet have studied it carefully and presented the positive and negative aspects of the law objectively and accurately,” the statement added, saying that the government was fully committed to implementing the law.
“We will continue to take further steps toward reform that benefits the public interest in Kurdistan Region.”
As it was making its way through the parliament, pensioners, civil society activists, and opposition politicians objected to provisions that guaranteed generous pensions for senior government officials and argued that the reform did little for ordinary workers.
The government defended the legislation, saying that it would modernize payments within the government and clear payrolls of ghost employees.
In Tuesday’s statement, Barzani’s office said that the bill included “the foundations and standards for achieving justice and would reassure employees that their rights and entitlements are guaranteed and preserved in the present and future,” the statement added.
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