Two Kurdish Ruling Parties'
Finance Ministries Share Regional Budget
BBC Monitoring
International Reports
Jan 31 2007
"From the [Kurdistan] Region's
5bn-dollas budget, 52 per cent goes to the Kurdistan Democratic Party and 48 per
cent for the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan"; published by Iraqi independent
weekly newspaper Awene on 30 January
Both [KDP and PUK] Finance
Ministries will not unite in 2007, and 52 per cent of the Kurdistan Region's
budget allocated from Baghdad will go to the Kurdistan Democratic Party [KDP]
while 48 per cent will go to the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan [PUK].
The Iraqi parliament will discuss the
[Kurdistan] Region's 5.982bn-dollar budget in the next few days. The KDP and the
PUK have agreed that both Finance Ministries will stay intact with the KDP-run
Finance Ministry controlling 52 per cent of the budget, and the PUK-run Finance
Ministry controlling 48 per cent.
An informed source told Awene, "All [Kurdistan]
regional government employees' salaries - from the Kurdistan Region president
and Kurdistan Speaker to the lowest ranking employee - will be paid from Arbil,
but both parties will jointly provide the money."
Regarding projects implemented in the region,
the source said, "Both parties will jointly finance the shared projects.
Regarding other projects implemented by the ministries, the KDP will finance
projects implemented in Arbil and Duhok, while the PUK will finance projects
implemented in Sulaymaniyah."
The PUK and the KDP have shown no signs to
reveal other regional revenues such as customs, factory revenues and excise.
About the percentage of the budget allocated
for the one million government employees, the source said, "Sixty-eight per cent
of the budget goes to the government employees. This is a huge proportion,
straining the budget."
