Salam Zidan - Baghdad
Iraqi officials revealed that about 20% of the salary budget of $ 43.3 billion annually goes to the pockets of the corrupt. This came after the Iraqi government began, in coordination with Parliament, to verify the names of employees, retirees, and social welfare.
The deterioration of the state's financial revenues due to the decline in international oil prices made the government lose the ability to pay the salaries of employees and retirees and resort to local banks, and it is feared that if oil prices remain low, they will be forced to borrow from abroad.
Finance Minister Ali Allawi said that the aliens (who are registered in the payroll without practicing work or fictitious names paid by some officials) take salaries from the state, numbering between 200 thousand and 250 thousand people, while the employees who are part-time are more than that, explaining These two groups constitute 15 to 20% of employees and allocate 20% of the salary budget annually.
Late procedure
On this issue, a member of the Committee for the Disclosure of Imaginary and Double-Salary Employees in Parliament, Ikhlas al-Dulaimi, says that the Committee asked all independent ministries and agencies to send the names of employees, their job addresses and the size of their salaries, and to disclose the imaginary employees or those who are paid salaries without time, as well as who is an employee in A civil or military ministry and receives a salary as a contract from another ministry or a welfare pension and retirement for its audit.
In an interview with Al-Jazeera Net, Al-Dulaimi expected that the work of her committee would end next month, and that a large number of imaginary and double-salaried employees would be revealed, exceeding 200 thousand people, but she described this procedure as very late, for over 17 years the concept of the state was destroyed through employment based on personal interests. And partisanship without regard to the country’s need.
And she added that the new political generation is the one who is in the process of correcting the path of the state and achieving economic reform that includes 70 points imposed by Parliament on the government of Prime Minister Mustafa Al-Kazimi and implemented within two months, including reforming taxes, collection and border ports and adopting e-government.
Regarding the penalties facing fake and double-salaried employees, Al-Dulaimi said that in the event that an employee receives more than one salary, he will be given a choice between one of them, and a portion of his salary will be deducted to return the money he took without the right to the other salary previously, or confiscate part of his money for compensation.
The time for reform has come.
For his part, economist Manaf Al-Sayegh supported the government's actions to end the dossier on dual salaries and fake employees.
In his speech to Al-Jazeera Net, the jeweler stated that the current government is serious about ending this file, but it will face a major attack by the parties that he considered responsible for this devastation.
He stressed that the financial, economic and health conditions have reached a closed path, so they have no choice but to reform, because Iraq cannot bear more waste of money and resources, noting that the current conditions are appropriate to implement economic reform, especially since the current government has international support from America, the European Union and the Arab countries.
The Foundation for Political Prisoners (established by the state through a law enacted by Parliament in 2006, and linked to the presidency of the government, and it addresses the general situation of former political prisoners and compensates them by employing them within the state departments and granting them pension salaries) against salary reform, as she said that this measure will empty the state of energies Fairness, and the decision not to combine two salaries will not add anything significant to the budget, noting that the Political Prisoners Corporation Law allowed more than one salary to be collected.
Political pressure
on his part, the head of the Administrative Consultative Office at Baghdad University, Ali Al-Sudani, said that there are 250 thousand employees and retirees who earn more than a salary or do not continue, noting that opening this file is very difficult and therefore the government may retract it after receiving political or popular pressure, considering It would be better for the government now to resort to economic reform at the border crossing points, collection and automation.
In his speech to Al-Jazeera Net, Al-Sudani pointed out that the current government has witnessed a retreat from some decisions, such as imposing an income tax on the salaries of retirees, which sends negative messages that it is unable to reform this thorny file, calling on the government to rely on major consulting companies, as well as the use of internal consulting offices. To achieve economic reform, while working in this way is not a successful option.