2026-10-17T16:26:26+00:00
Shafaq News- Erbil
Federal funds from Baghdad paid for roughly one in every three months of public-sector salaries in the Kurdistan Region (KRI) over the past 12 years, the finance ministry said on Saturday, laying out its case in a long-running dispute over the KRI’s share of Iraq’s oil wealth.
The semi-autonomous Kurdistan Region relies heavily on transfers from Iraq’s federal budget, which is funded almost entirely by oil sales. Between 2014 and 2025, the KRI was allocated 212.8 trillion dinars (about $140 billion,) before deductions, according to figures published by the Kurdistan Regional Government’s (KRG) Ministry of Finance and Economy. Baghdad sent 41 trillion dinars (roughly $27 billion), while 171.7 trillion dinars were withheld.
On average, the transfers amounted to about 2% of Iraq’s annual budget each year, the ministry said, far below the legal share, which was set at 17% and later at 12.67%. The money covered 46 of the 144 monthly salary payments owed to the region’s public employees and other beneficiaries.
The figures vary sharply from year to year. Baghdad sent nothing in 2016 and 2017. In 2022, transfers fell to 0.33% of the budget, enough for a single month of salaries, before rising to 4.73% in 2024, which covered 11 months.
Read more: Erbil-Baghdad disputes: A cycle of missed opportunities and deep-seated divides
The gap, according to the ministry, comes from deductions Baghdad made for sovereign spending, debts, and other obligations before transferring the share. In 2014, 2020 and 2022, when Iraq had no budget law, Baghdad treated the money it sent as loans and later deducted it from the region’s allocation once a budget was passed.
The ministry also argues that the KRI’s share should now be higher. Based on federal Planning Ministry data from 2024 and the results of Iraq’s population census, KRI is entitled to 14.14% of the budget.
A KRG delegation was in Baghdad this month seeking guarantees that the KRI’s salaries would be written into the budget law and paid on time.
*$1 = 1,520 dinars
Source: Shafaq News
