The Iraqi ministerial council held a meeting in Baghdad on Tuesday, making a range of decisions including its approval for the continuation of the payment of Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) civil servants, according to a statement from the Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia’ al-Sudani.
The KRG will be required to create employee identification numbers for its employees at the federal planning ministry before the end of the year, Sudani said.
Baghdad has said there are many repeated names in the KRG’s payroll, a claim Erbil denies. The creation of unique identification numbers is anticipated to help detect people who receive more than one salary.
After two days of meetings concluding on Monday in the capital of the Kurdistan Region, Iraqi and Kurdish officials agreed on resolving outstanding issues between Erbil and Baghdad, including salaries, finances, customs, and tax policies.
The Iraqi delegation, led by Foreign Minister Fuad Hussein, who also serves as chair of the ministerial council for the economy, and Finance Minister Taif Sami, met with the KRG’s economic council, chaired by Prime Minister Masrour Barzani.
Baghdad has paid the salaries of the Kurdistan Region’s civil servants for seven months of this year, albeit with delays. The Iraqi government has pointed to repeated problems, such as duplicate names in the payroll list and issues with names on the Kirkuk payroll in July.
