Between job slack and threatening the state treasury... the government continues “appointments”

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[size=52]Between job slack and threatening the state treasury... the government continues “appointments”[/size]

[size=45]The Minister of Higher Education and Scientific Research, Naeem Al-Aboudi, issued a ministerial order to appoint four thousand one hundred and twenty-nine holders of a master’s degree.[/size]
[size=45]Last July, the Federal Public Service Council in Iraq approved a new batch of appointments.[/size]
[size=45]The council stated in a statement that “more than 420 records were appointed to the staff of various ministries, agencies and governorates, according to the electronic lottery mechanism.”[/size]
[size=45]The International Labor Organization indicated that 40 percent of Iraqi workers work in the public sector, which is the highest in the world, while an expert indicated that this flabbiness hinders economic work in Iraq, burdens the state, and drains its resources.[/size]
[size=45]The organization's country coordinator in Iraq, Dr. Maha Kattaa, said that the public sector in Iraq employs 40 percent of the country's workforce, which is the highest percentage in the world.[/size]
[size=45]She pointed out that most women working in the public sector work in teaching and health services jobs in Iraq, warning that any expansion in employment in the public sector may cause many challenges in the future.[/size]
[size=45]Stop appointments[/size]
[size=45]The Parliamentary Finance Committee considered earlier that Iraq needs to stop hiring for 10 years to adjust the expenditure balance, noting that there is a government policy to reduce government slackness because Iraq has a high employment rate.[/size]
[size=45]Finance Committee member Jamal Koujar said that the budget was devoid of appointments this year, and 10 years of no appointments are needed to adjust the expenditure balance.
Koujar added that “there is a government policy to reduce operating expenses and reduce government flabbiness, as Iraq has a high rate of employees according to international standards.
He explained that “international standards confirm the need for a security officer and a public service employee for every thousand citizens, while 25% of the Iraqi people receive salaries from the government,” noting that “Iraq is equal to Canada in population, yet the number of its employees is equivalent to a quarter of Iraq’s employees.”[/size]
[size=45]While the member of the Parliamentary Legal Committee, Representative Salem Ibrahim Al-Anbaki, confirmed that Iraq has reached the peak of functional flabbiness, which threatens the government treasury, which depends on 93% of its revenues from the sale of crude oil.[/size]
[size=45]Al-Anbaky said, “Appointment without prior planning leads to investing capabilities in production, which has negative consequences on the performance of state institutions, which have reached the peak of flabbiness in light of large numbers that exceed the ability to absorb them, accompanied by large differences in financial rights between one ministry and another, despite the equivalence of experience, degrees, years of service, and even specialization.”[/size]
[size=45]Al-Anbaki added, “The continuation of government appointments without controls that help address the flabbiness that has occurred with the rise in the wage bill will put the state in a difficult position after years,” noting that “93% of the state treasury’s revenues depend directly on the sale of crude oil, which has faced price fluctuations in recent years.”[/size]
[size=45]He pointed out that "Iraq has promising development and economic prospects, including the development path and other projects, in addition to the possibility of opening up to reviving factories," explaining that "the annual import bill reaches 50 billion dollars from sectors for which alternatives can be provided in the country on the industrial, agricultural and even food levels."[/size]
[size=45]Al-Anbaky stressed that “all economic reports on the appointments file raise concerns, especially with the large increase in the number of Iraqi employees compared to the size of its population,” stressing “the importance of reconsidering and for the state to put pressure towards reviving the private sector and providing greater job opportunities compared to government appointments.”[/size]
[size=45]Iraq does not have a private sector[/size]
[size=45]Mustafa Akram Hantoush, a financial and economic expert, said, “Successive Iraqi governments do not appoint because they need these appointments, but because they do not want any real work in the private sector. This is why the government appoints hundreds of thousands because there are no job opportunities for young people in the private sector, and the responsible parties and figures in the state have not found any real solutions for this matter.”[/size]
[size=45]He explained that “stopping appointments for one year in Iraq is impossible, not for ten years, as Iraq does not have a private sector, and the private sector is a media bubble in Iraq. Iraq has approximately 45 million people and needs thousands of industrial cities and thousands of factories in order for there to be a real economic renaissance to activate the private sector in a real way.”[/size]
[size=45]He added, “The private sector is acting through the existence of a regulatory plan by the government by granting part of the financial allocations for the infrastructure of the private sector through establishing popular markets and allowances and giving loans for various projects, especially since the Central Bank of Iraq stopped the loans without any study, and this destroyed the Iraqi market, as these loans have been stopped for nearly two years and there is no real work in the private sector and there is no addition or development in this sector.”[/size]
[size=45]The financial and economic expert stressed that “the private sector needs activation, an annual regulatory budget, and loan initiatives and laws. After activating this sector, Iraq will only need appointments. Otherwise, Iraq will continue to need appointments, and they cannot be stopped for any short period of time. Therefore, they will continue during this government and during the coming Iraqi governments.”[/size]
[size=45]Call to cancel “appointments”[/size]
[size=45]The International Monetary Fund, earlier this year, stressed the need for Iraq to gradually correct its financial situation to achieve debt stability in the medium term and rebuild financial reserves.[/size]
[size=45]This comes after the Executive Board of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) concluded Article IV consultations with Iraq and studied and approved the staff assessment, before recommending control over public wages and the gradual elimination of mandatory employment, according to a report by the Fund.[/size]
[size=45]The next Article IV consultations with Iraq are expected to be held in the standard 12-month cycle, according to the IMF report and schedules.[/size]
[size=45]The executive directors, according to the report, agreed with “the thrust of the staff assessment, welcoming the strong economic recovery, low inflation, and improved domestic conditions that led to the implementation of the first-ever three-year budget. They noted that risks were skewed to the downside, given regional conflicts and high dependence on volatile oil prices, and that the large fiscal expansion could lead to fiscal and external imbalances.”[/size]
[size=45]Directors stressed that “a gradual but substantial fiscal adjustment is needed to stabilize debt over the medium term and rebuild fiscal buffers. They encouraged the authorities to focus on controlling the public wage bill, phasing out mandatory employment policies, and mobilizing non-oil revenues, with better targeting of social assistance.”[/size]
[size=45]In recent periods, Iraq has witnessed a great slackness in government institutions due to decisions to appoint a large number of employees in steps described as ill-considered. It is worth mentioning that during the past two decades, successive governments have postponed looking into the problems of human development in the private sector, and resorted to a recruitment movement in the public sector, so that the government job became “the dream and goal of the young man”, so that these problems accumulated and combined until they became a heavy burden on successive budgets, no matter how explosive their investment was.[/size]
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