Zaidi promises Kurdish employees salary parity, and attaches no transfer date to it
The prime minister told KDP lawmakers in Baghdad on Tuesday that Kurdistan Region employees would be paid on a par with staff elsewhere in the state. The readout came from his own office and carried no mechanism.
Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi told the Kurdistan Democratic Party’s parliamentary bloc on Tuesday 3 November that his government would guarantee salaries for Kurdistan Region employees on a par with state employees in other ministries and governorates, according to a statement from his office reported by 964media. Shakhawan Abdullah, who heads the KDP bloc, said the bloc supported the government’s efforts and reform policies and that the Region was committed to the constitution and the law to ensure social justice, per the same statement. Erbil’s underlying claim is budgetary: the KRG wants the Region’s share calculated on 14.14 percent of Iraq’s population. There is no finance ministry figure in the readout, no transfer date and no mechanism — this is a prime ministerial account of a closed meeting, sourced to the two parties who attended it.
The mechanics that would make the pledge real already exist on paper and function intermittently. Under a 2025 agreement the Region was initially obligated to transfer 391 billion dinars a month to Baghdad, later reduced to 200 billion, 964media reported. The KRG has shown the channel can operate: it said in May that it sent 50.29 billion dinars, about $38.4 million, to Baghdad under the revenue-sharing arrangement tied to federal salary payments, according to Shafaq News. Erbil’s finance ministry rejects claims it has failed its obligations, saying it has met its duties under Federal Financial Management Law No. 6 of 2019 and that salaries were funded for ten months in return, Kurdistan24 reported.
Assessment: The obstruction here is not only Erbil–Baghdad. The two deputy parliament speakers have taken opposite public positions — Farhad Atroshi arguing salaries must not be hostage to the revenue dispute, his counterpart calling for payments to be suspended until it is settled — which is a fight inside Baghdad’s chamber. Zaidi now has a complete cabinet, approved on 15 October after eleven months from the election, and the KDP bloc’s votes matter to everything else he wants, the PMF bill included. Read Tuesday’s assurance as coalition maintenance until a finance ministry instruction with a dinar figure appears. Watch instead whether Erbil’s 200 billion a month is actually arriving.