Goran calls for Baghdad to tackle Kurdish corruption

Iraq & Kurdistan

Published on Saturday, 3 December 2016 Back to articles

As Iraq’s parliament prepared to discuss the 2017 budget, with discussions scheduled for 26 November, the Kurdish opposition Goran (Movement for Change) faction caused a stir. Goran MP Hoshyar Abdullah gave a press conference in November at which he announced that his party’s bloc in the federal parliament intended to raise “all the corruption files in the Kurdish region” at the federal level. He explained that Goran wanted the federal government and federal parliament to take responsibility for investigating corruption cases in the Kurdish region.

This is a new and bold move on Goran’s part. Until now, such issues have been considered as being within the realm of the region itself. However, Abdullah claimed that the crisis in the Kurdish region, which he asserted was caused by a lack of transparency in the oil file, had reached such proportions that it was threatening social stability. Because of this, he explained, “We are going to deal differently with the crisis and take it up at the national level.”

Goran is also calling for a change in the articles of the budget that relate to Kurdish oil exports. Abdullah explained, “At the end of 2014 the Kurdish government had an oil agreement with the federal government which stipulated that the region should be given its dues in return for handing over 550,000 b/d from the Kurdish region and Kirkuk. Unfortunately the Kurdish government hasn’t kept to that agreement despite the fact that it was included in the budgets of 2015 and 2016.”

He went on to assert, “The problem is that in one of its paragraphs this agreement stipulates that this agreement is optional. This is why the Kurdish government was able to move away from the agreement.”

Goran is now demanding that this agreement be included in the 2017 budget but that this year the articles be binding for both Erbil and Baghdad, meaning that if one party breaks the agreement the case can be taken to the judiciary.

A call to deal directly with Sulaymaniyah

More controversially, Abdullah attacked the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), accusing it of not caring about the Iraqi parliament, judiciary or law. He went on to demand that, because the KRG may not keep to the oil agreement, it should be stated in the budget that the federal government should deal directly with Sulaymaniyah as a governorate. By this he meant that funds from the budget should be sent directly to Sulaymaniyah, rather than by being passed to Erbil first. He pointed out that Iraqi law and the constitution provide for such a deal to be struck, given that other governorates receive their money directly from the central authorities.

Abdullah tried to mitigate the fall-out from Goran’s making such a demand — which he revealed had given rise to accusations that Goran were ‘traitors’ — by explaining, “This is a financial deal. It has nothing to do with the situation in the Kurdish region. We don’t want the breakup of the Kurdish region but we want a financial deal for one year for 2017.” He also tried to differentiate Goran’s stance from that of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), by asserting, “The 2017 budget is a federal one. The problem in the Kurdish region is related to oil but oil is for all Iraqis.”

Goran’s call for Baghdad to deal with Sulaymaniyah directly reflects its frustration, and that of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), with the KDP holding almost all the region’s purse strings in its hands. The two parties feel that they are being suffocated by the KDP; there are accusations among Goran members that the KDP is withholding money from Sulaymaniyah to subjugate it further.

Goran also alleged that only 20% of oil revenues raised by sales from the Kurdish region is being deposited in the region’s account, claiming that the remainder is being divvied up among officials.

Abdullah also claimed that after Baghdad finally released some money to the Kurdish government as a result of the meeting between Masoud Barzani and Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi at the end of September (see Iraq & Kurdistan Focus - October 2016), Barzani’s protection force received their salaries, while others in the region did not.

According to Abdullah, Goran is supported in these demands by both the PUK and the Islamic Movement of Kurdistan. If this is the case, Iraq could be in for a fiery session in the parliament when the budget is discussed.

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