Kurdish public employees shift protests to Baghdad's Tahrir Square in unprecedented move

Peregraf

Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) teachers and employees are moving their demonstrations to Tahrir Square in Baghdad to demand a solution to the salary crisis.

Teachers and employees held protests in Sulaymaniyah, Halabja, Garmian and Raparin areas on 19 Nov 2023, demanding their monthly salaries and chanting slogans against the Kurdistan Regional Government.

"I am a teacher and my husband is an employee and we aretenants. We are both waiting for our monthly salaries, but the Kurdistan Regional Government cannot provide that basic right, so we consider the boycott as our right and we will continue." Ahmad Ali told Peregraf while chanting slogans against the KRG during the demonstration in Sulaymaniyah.

Ahmad has three children, two of whom are in school, he said “If the schools open, I will not be able to go to teach with empty pockets, nor will I be able to send my two children back to school because I cannot afford them, and beside that my landlord demand my monthly rent.”

Half of November has passed and it is still unclear when the salary of the September will be payed, The KRG is waiting for Baghdad to send 700 billion dinars in loans as the last amount of the three-month loan it has decided to send to the region.

The 700 billion is expected to reach Erbil in the next few days and the salaries of September will be distributed, but the fate of the salaries of the next three months of this year is still unknown, as we move towards the New Year.

Masrour Barzani, the Prime Minister of Kurdistan Region, has asked Baghdad to send 700 billion dinars to the region for salaries in three months, Baghdad's response was that another financial settlement would have to be done in December to see what was left to provide.

"There has never been a place in the world where work is done without paying salaries. The authorities in Kurdistan Region cannot distribute salaries and we are waiting for Baghdad to pay our salaries directly. What is the benefit of KRG?" Aram Rasul, who was chanting slogans next to Ahmad at the protest in Sulaymaniyah, told Peregraf.

Aram is a public employee, his wife is unemployed and they have two children. “My wife and my two children are waiting for me to give them money every month. I am waiting for the Kurdistan Regional Government and it does not give me my basic salary. This is the situation after 32 years of Kurdish rule," said Aram.

"We will go to Baghdad and Tahrir Square next Sunday," the teachers and employees protesting in Sulaymaniyah said. Public employees demand Baghdad to pay their salaries directly, however, the Kurdistan Regional Government strongly rejects this and calls such a step unconstitutional and an attack on the status of the Kurdistan Region as a federal entity.

The protesters demand; the salaries of September and October should be distributed together and paid monthly on time, as well as the resumption of promotion of teachers and employees. Another demand is the recruitment of more than 35,000 teachers have been teaching on contracts and low salaries for several years, in addition, they ask for determining the fate of salary arrears in the past years.

Salary arrears were deductions of 10 percent to 70 percent of the monthly payments of employees between 2014 and 2019. In some years, several months were not paid in full and other months were distributed in arrears or partial deductions; duringthese years, 12 salaries were not paid in full and more than 30 salaries were distributed in arrears and deductions.

The fate of 700,000 students in Sulaymaniyah, Halabja, Raperinand Garmian provinces remains unknown due to the boycott, This has led grade 12 students to demand a reduction in the curriculum and have repeatedly demonstrated against the KRG’s Ministry of Education.

Regarding the demands of grade 12 students , Alan Hama Saeed, Minister of Education of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), told reporters on 16th Nov 2023, "When the Ministry of Education says: We will not reduce the curriculum, it means protecting the interests of students.”

"I assure all 12th grade students in Sulaymaniyah who started their studies late or have not started yet, their rights and interests will be protected," he added.

This year's wage crisis erupted after, the International Court of Arbitration in Paris On March 25 ruled in favor of the Iraqi government and forced Turkey to stop exporting oil from the Kurdistan Region and Kirkuk, since then, oil exports have been suspended, causing a $7 billion loss to the Iraqi economy, mostly to the Kurdistan Region.

The essence of the problems between Erbil and Baghdad is economic independence and the issue of oil extraction and export, which was taken away from the Kurdistan Region by the Federal Court of Iraq and handed over to Baghdad.

According to the three-year budget law (2023-2025), the Kurdistan Region's annual share is 16 trillion 609 billion 639 million 162 thousand dinars, but Baghdad is not ready to send the budget because according to the same law Iraq cannot benefit from the Kurdistan Region's oil due to the suspension of oil exports and the type of contracts.

The Iraqi government is not satisfied with the contracts that the Kurdistan Regional Government has made with oil companies and the type of partnership, Iraq believes that such contracts have given a lot of opportunities to international companies to make huge profits which are contrary to the service contracts used by the Iraqi Oil Ministry.

However, international oil companies consider the model of production sharing contracts with the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) as successful, saying that despite political, security and geological obstacles in the region, but international oil companies in 15 years of oil production is close 250,000 barrels per day from zero

Last week, the Iraqi Oil Minister was in Erbil for two days, intensive discussions were held and emphasized the need to resume oil exports, then the oil minister returned to Baghdad and took the results of the meeting and proposals to the Iraqi Prime Minister Payment of the budget according to the Iraqi budget law, to solve the problem of public employees and receive their monthly payments on time and end the boycott of teachers and employees.