Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa Al-Kazemi decided to reduce the salaries of the three presidencies (the republic, ministers, and parliament). It is expected that the House of Representatives will resume its sessions today, Wednesday, after a long interruption to discuss the financial crisis in the country and the Corona pandemic.
A government statement, issued after a meeting in Baghdad yesterday, said that the decision to cut salaries comes in light of the financial crisis the country is going through with the decline in oil prices in global markets.
And Iraq’s oil exports make up 98% of foreign currency flows to the country, with oil making up 45% of gross domestic product and 93% of general budget revenues.
"We have decided to reduce the salaries of presidencies, special grades and senior positions, to suspend the double-wage and delusional and to rationalize government spending," according to the statement.
He added, "We will not allow the financial crisis solutions to be at the expense of the rights of low-income employees, retirees, and those entitled to social welfare." The statement did not address the date of the start of implementing the decision.
The three presidencies include more than six thousand employees who receive annual salaries of about three billion dollars, according to previous estimates made by the financial expert and former Inspector General of the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs Jamal Al-Asadi.
The total salaries of state employees are six trillion dinars (five billion dollars) per month, according to the head of the Finance Committee in Parliament, Haitham al-Jabouri, and the current monthly revenue from the sale of oil is about two billion dollars, according to the Ministry of Oil.
And Iraq lost $ 11 billion in proceeds from the sale of oil for the first four months of this year due to lower oil prices, due to the Corona virus crisis, according to the Ministry of Oil.
Al-Kazemi has taken a series of measures since he took office last month, including the return of military leaders who were expelled from their posts, the release of protesters, the formation of investigation committees on the dead of the protests, and the restriction of arms in the hands of the state.
Parliament and
is expected to resume the House of Representatives today after a long interruption during which only one session was held during which he voted to grant confidence to the Al-Kazemi government on the seventh of last month.
The agenda of the session in most of its paragraphs deals with the financial crisis in Iraq, as well as a draft law for domestic and external borrowing to fill the fiscal deficit in the general budget for 2020 that has not been approved so far, as well as discussing a parliamentary report on the Corona pandemic and ways to control its spread.
Parliamentary Adviser Shaker Hamid said, in a press statement, that the Presidency of the Council preceded the session by holding a meeting of heads of the blocs, headed by Parliament Speaker Mohammed Al-Halbousi and his deputy Hassan Al-Kaabi, during which the necessity for deputies to attend today's session was to start with the direct approval of laws that are consistent with the financial and economic challenges facing The country is in the shadow of the fiscal deficit and the Corona virus.
Hamed said that the parliament was notified that the prime minister completed the names of the candidates for the vacant ministries, and perhaps the CVs of the seven portfolios (trade, agriculture, culture, immigration and the displaced, justice, foreign affairs, oil) will arrive during the next two days, and it is likely that a session of parliament will be held to give confidence to the seven ministers next week.