SOUTH KURDISTAN : KRG ruling parties vote for corrupt budget
16 Feb 2013 – Kurdistan Tribune – The Kurdistan Regional Government’s (KRG) 2013 budget was approved yesterday by the Kurdistan parliament. Despite a hard campaign against it in recent weeks by the three opposition parties, the budget was passed by the votes of 61 MPs belonging to the two ruling parties.
The opposition argued that the budget is designed to maintain institutional corruption. Here are two striking examples of how the KRG spends public money: Almost half the budget goes to pay for 650,000 civil servants, many of whom are inefficiently employed. Millions of dollars from the budget go towards the upkeep of Masud Barzani’s Sare Rash palace and his other houses and servants.