Abdul-Mahdi instructs gov’t to pay Peshmerga salaries
ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – Iraqi Prime Minister Adil Abdul-Mahdi has instructed the Ministry of Finance to send funds for Peshmerga salaries to the Kurdistan Region, after months of delay in disbursing monies that were allocated in the 2019 budget.
“Prime Minister Adil Abdul-Mahdi, as acting Minister of Defense, has decided to send four [months of] salaries for Peshmerga forces, from January 1, 2019, until now,” member of the Iraqi parliament Nasir Harki told Rudaw on Wednesday. Harki sits on the parliament’s security committee.
In the 2019 budget, the Peshmerga were allocated 68 billion dinars ($57 million) monthly to pay salaries, coming out of the budget of the Iraqi Defence Ministry. The budget was passed in January, but the Peshmerga Ministry has not yet received any payments.
Abdul-Mahdi made the decision on Tuesday after the Peshmerga Ministry said they were visiting Baghdad to track down the money. He sent a letter, the contents of which were disclosed to Rudaw, to the Ministry of Finance instructing it to transfer all 12 months’ worth of payments, 816 billion dinars, from the Defense Ministry to the Finance Ministry in order to be used for Peshmerga salaries.
The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) paid the Peshmerga their salaries for January, Secretary-General of the Peshmerga Ministry Jabar Yawar told Rudaw on Wednesday.
“This year is the first time” Peshmerga salaries are fixed within the payroll of the Iraqi Ministry of Defence, he said, crediting improved relations between the regional and federal governments.
The delay in sending payments is not indicative of a problem in that relationship, but is because of bureaucratic delays in Baghdad, he added.
His ministry will send a representative to the Iraqi Ministry of Defence to discuss establishing a mechanism for transferring the Peshmerga share of the budget, Yawar said.