The ministry said in a statement that the TBI handed them 368 debit cards of KRG public employees who have chosen to be paid through the federal bank, adding that this is part of the Kurdish government’s initiative, My Account, which is aimed to stop paying its employees in cash.
The TBI had no immediate comment on the delivery of the debit cards.
Six private banks are involved in offering digital banking services to the KRG’s over a million public employees. The federal government has shouldered the payment of the employees since the beginning of this year but has yet to agree to continue the process through My Account. Baghdad wants to apply its own banking initiative, Tawtin (localization).
KRG officials claim that the TBI has joined the My Account initiative and that the bank is offering banking services to its employees in the framework of the initiative. The TBI has not confirmed this, instead using the word Tawtin - a process the KRG has campaigned against - in its statement about the process last month.
KRG pays the salaries of almost all of its civil servants in cash, causing further delays. Some pensioners have lost their lives while waiting in long lines in front of banks during pay days. It often takes the government more than a week to disperse the salaries.
The cash-strapped KRG has failed to pay the salaries of its civil servants in full and on time for years due to a financial crisis which was worsened when an arbitration court ruling brought its oil exports to a halt in March last year.
The Iraqi Supreme Federal Court earlier this year ruled that Baghdad should pay the salaries of KRG employees, ordering “localization” of the salaries. It later allowed the federal government to continue the payment of the KRG employees in cash until the digitization process was completed.
