Draw Media

The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) has not yet started to distribute the April salaries, waiting for the arrival of 400 billion dinars from Baghdad even with the money from Baghdad, the KRG will have a deficit of about (170 billion) dinars..

Oil sales, which accounted for 77% of the KRG's total expenditures (including salaries), have been halted on March 25 after a Paris-based arbitration court ruled that Turkey had violated a 1973 agreement with Iraq by exporting the resource from the semi-autonomous Kurdish region without Baghdad’s consent between 2014 and 2018. Since then, the KRG has lost this important source of revenue, therefore Baghdad has decided to send 400 billion dinars monthly to the Kurdistan Region to cover the oil revenue deficit until the Iraqi budget is approved.

This amount accounts for only 44% of salary expenditures in the Kurdistan Region. In addition to other expenditures, the remainder of the salary deficit must be covered by the KRG with domestic revenues.

The federal government has not yet sent the 400 billion dinars for the April salaries, but the Kurdistan Regional Government is expected to receive the money this week.

If the federal government sends the 400 billion dinars this week, the Kurdistan Regional Government will add 200 billion dinars of domestic revenue, along with the 100 billion dinars which has remained in the government’s treasury. In addition, the government receives more than 31 billion dinars monthly as aid to the Peshmerga from the international coalition, which means that the KRG will have an average of 731 billion dinars, while the monthly salary expenditure in the Kurdistan Region is more than 900 billion dinars in this case, the government will have a deficit of about (170 billion) dinars to cover salary expenditures.