After being described by Iraqis as “looting” .. Federal Court: No retirement salaries for MPs
BAGHDAD / Al-Masala: On Sunday, December 23, 2018, the Federal Supreme Court ruled unconstitutional articles in the House of Representatives Law No. 13 of 2018, including pensions. In a statement received by the court, the court’s spokesman Ayas al-Samuk said the court also ruled unconstitutional article 13, which singled out the president of the council and his deputies, and the members of the council with salaries different from salaries covered by the unified pension law. Article 17, which authorized the council to issue legislative decisions, And article 68 on the authority of the Council in establishing the system of priorities as being the competence of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Iraqis are still pursuing a voluntary campaign to abolish salaries and pension benefits for MPs, which are doubling fantastically with the succession of election cycles.
Those who called the call, the National Campaign to Abolish Parliamentarians’ Retirement, say it is aimed at “justice in the division of wealth”.
“It is not reasonable that a parliamentary retirement is five million dinars for a four-year service, while a 25-year-old employee’s salary does not exceed 300,000 dinars,” a digital activist wrote on the Facebook campaign page.
According to statements by members of the Iraqi Council of Representatives to the media, followed by “obelisk”, it can be said that “the nominal monthly salary allocated to one deputy at the current session of about 10 thousand dollars, as well as salaries of 30 security elements and 50 thousand dollars to buy a car.”
“Achieving a courageous goal to stop the depletion of public money by parliament must be on the ground, not a dream in the form of a joke in Facebook,” says author and academic Mohamed Yunus.
“We call on the people to demonstrate before the parliament until tangible results are achieved,” he said.
Yunus went further than that when he called for the intervention of the UN body, saying that “the enjoyment of these privileges by MPs is a crime against humanity.”
“A servant serving his country has four decades to come out with a short pension, while a retired parliamentarian is worth more than 50 pensioners,” he said.
“We are the only ones in the world to give pensions to the outgoing MPs and loot them with special advances with plots in high-end areas,” said Ahmed Hadi.
On the campaign page, Mawlama says that “the total number of parliamentarians’ salaries in one year is only 32 million dollars.”
The former deputy and economic expert Salam Samism described former and current members of the House of Representatives and their protections as “an army of retired pampered and constitute a heavy burden on the Iraqi treasury.”
“The current number of deputies is 325 deputies, and with the payment of 10 thousand dollars each means that they receive 3 million and 250 thousand dollars a month, as well as 3 million dollars paid to them under the name of (rent allowance).”
“We can imagine the size of the huge sums paid each month,” she said. “This is the situation of the current deputies. As for the former, we can count 275 deputies from the former parliament and their protectors and 100 members from the National Assembly and their protections. We now have a whole squad of protections. ”
“Iraq now has an army of pampered retirees who are paid millions of dollars a month without providing a service that deserves it,” said Smisem, a specialist in the economy. “The situation will be worse after four years, Much on the Iraqi treasury. ”