SULAIMANI (ESTA) — A lawmaker on Friday slammed the ninth cabinet of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) for making “discrimination” in offering service to Sulaimani province.
The deputy chairman of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan faction (PUK) in the Kurdistan Region parliament said the party is “troubled” by the ninth cabinet “siege” on Sulaimani province.
“The ninth cabinet of the KRG discriminates against offering the service project to Sulaimani, Halabja, and Garmian administration,” said Luqman Wardee, the faction’s deputy chairman.
“That what is PUK is concerned about,” and “it’s not acceptable to put Sulaimani under a siege,” he said in a statement to Esta Media Network.
Elaborating more regarding the party’s concerns towards the KRG’s ninth cabinet, the lawmaker added that “The PUK concerns are about problems that grasped people.”
“As a consequence, we will not make a compromise,” he stressed.
Moreover, the lawmaker also stated that the ongoing Prime Minister “took credit for every achievement of the cabinet, while in reality, the achievements belong to every single participant of the government.”
“The cabinet must mention the name of the Prime Minister whenever it decides to allocate a fund for any project. Such a thing is not existing anywhere in the world,” the lawmaker continued.
It’s been more than a year since Sulaimani has faced “punishment” from the KRG, rejecting to allocate funds for the service projects, according to local officials.
However, the KRG has also blamed Sulaimani officials for allegedly not being transparent in the revenue of the province.
In response to the KRG’s “accusations” Deputy of the Kurdistan Region Prime Minister Qubad Talabani on Thursday in a 3-minute-long video unveiled the shafafiat.com web page which means “transparency”.
The web page provides the citizens with the latest updates regarding non-oil revenues of Sulaimani province moment by moment.
Speaking about initiating the web page Talabani said, “Shafafiat [transparency] is the backbone of building trust between citizens and the authority.”
“Unjust accusations have been made against Sulaimani for not being transparent,” said Talabani.
“Fortunately Sulaimani became the first province for making a such significant step in the direction of transparency,” Talabani added.
From this moment of, every single individual who seeks to learn about the non-oil revenues of Sulaimani province can visit Shafafiat.com, according to Talabani’s words.
Moreover, Talabani also stated that the web page has been established in coordination with the Region Minister of Finance, adding that, “soon we will announce the second phase of the web page which transparently discloses the expenditures of Sulaimani province for the citizens.”
“We will show in practice that Sulaimani is in a safe hand,” and “we have nothing to hide. anyone whose background is clear, will not be afraid of the people to be held accountable,” Talabani continued.
Moreover, Talabani wished other provinces in the Kurdistan Region and wider Iraq to take similar steps so that the trust will be “restored”.
