Kurdistan
A person at a bank and the logo of the Kurdistan Regional Government's 'My Account' initiative. Graphic: Rudaw
ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) on Sunday issued a formal request to its ministries for a banking and salary digitization project to proceed unimpeded, following reports that the process has been obstructed in Sulaimani and Halabja provinces.
Omed Sabah, head of the Diwan of the Kurdistan Region’s Council of Ministers, in a letter requested the KRG’s finance and interior ministries, as well as the justice ministry’s public prosecutor’s office, to take legal action against those obstructing the My Account project.
The My Account project was launched last year by Prime Minister Masrour Barzani as part of a KRG initiative to digitize government services and improve the salary disbursement process, allowing public employees to receive payments directly through the banking system.
In the Diwan’s letter, the finance ministry was urged to “take legal and administrative action against bank managers” and the interior ministry “to hold accountable and punish police officers and employees” who impede My Account employees from “performing their duties.”
The letter further requested the prosecutor’s office in the justice ministry to “take legal proceedings” against those preventing My Account staff from delivering services to citizens.
The prosecutor’s office also issued a directive to its branches in Sulaimani and Halabja provinces, as well as Garmiyan and Raparin administrations, instructing legal action against “any person or party that prevents them from doing their work.”
The KRG’s request follows reports by the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) official media on Thursday that My Account offices in Sulaimani were shut down.
“Nearly 10 days ago, that team’s [My Account’s] work was halted in our bank,” a source told Rudaw on condition of anonymity on Thursday, attributing the suspension to crowds in the bank on salary disbursement days. However, My Account teams told Rudaw that they would continue their work.
The premier is a deputy leader of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) which, along with the PUK, has formed the ruling government.
The KDP and PUK derive support from different parts of the Region - the KDP is dominant in Erbil and Duhok provinces while the PUK has held Sulaimani and Halabja, where the prosecutor's directive is issued to.
During the Kurdistan Region’s election campaign, which ran from September 25 to October 15, PUK leader Bafel Talabani criticized the My Account project at rallies, urging citizens to adopt the Tawtin initiative.
The spokesperson for the PUK bloc in the Iraqi parliament echoed Talabani’s criticism on Saturday.
“My Account… [is in] the past; there is nothing left in that name, and it is over,” Sozan Mansour said, as reported by party media.
“It is necessary that by the end of the year, all salaried employees of the [Kurdistan] Region have Tawtin [accounts] opened for them in one of the Iraqi state banks,” she added.
The KRG has paid the salaries of almost all of its civil servants in cash. Delays sometimes have lasted weeks with Erbil blaming the Iraqi federal government in Baghdad.
In February, Iraq’s Federal Supreme Court ordered the KRG to open accounts for its employees at Iraqi state-owned banks - a process dubbed Tawtin (localization) by Baghdad. However, the ruling does not specify that My Account is to be used.
The federal government has shouldered the payment of the employees this year but Baghdad has not agreed to continue the process through the KRG initiative, instead favoring Tawtin.
“No federal body can deal directly with the population or salaried employees of the Kurdistan Region,” Iraq’s Deputy Finance Minister Masoud Haider said in a Facebook post on Monday.
“My Account and Tawtin [localization] are the same process,” the KDP member added.
The KRG has said that state and private banks will roll out the My Account initiative.
“To date, nearly 700,000 people on the public payroll have registered [to My Account], including about 200,000 Peshmerga across the Kurdistan Region,” Aziz Ahmad, deputy chief of staff to Prime Minister Barzani said in a post on X on Monday.
The KRG has failed to pay the salaries of its civil servants on time and in full for a decade due to a financial crisis which further deteriorated in March 2023, when a Paris-based arbitration court ruling suspended its exportation of oil to the international markets. Erbil is reliant upon local income and the federal budget share.
However, Erbil has repeatedly accused Baghdad of not making regular payments of its share of federal funds. In June 2023, Iraq passed a three-year budget of which the Kurdistan Region's share is 12.6 percent.
Updated at 11 p.m.
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