No one knows where smuggled Kurdistan oil revenues go: ex-mp

Oil trucks in Iraqi Kurdistan 2015. Photo: Creative Commons/wikipedia

SULAIMANI,— Kawa Abdulqadir, a former member of the Kurdistan Parliament from the New Generation Movement, has raised serious concerns about the management of smuggled oil revenues and the Kurdistan Regional Government’s (KRG) financial practices.

Abdulqadir criticized the KRG’s failure to distribute salaries despite receiving full funding from Baghdad, and highlighted a lack of transparency regarding domestic and smuggled oil revenue use.

In a statement on social media on Sunday, Abdulqadir pointed out that while the Iraqi government had sent the full salary allocation for the year 2024, the KRG had not distributed it. According to Abdulqadir, the KRG is also not utilizing domestic revenues or the proceeds from smuggled oil to pay public employees.

“The KRG is failing to distribute salaries properly,” Abdulqadir said. “Despite Baghdad sending the funds, the Kurdistan Regional Government does not allocate its domestic revenues or oil revenues to public salaries.”

Abdulqadir further accused the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) of continuing to smuggle 400,000 barrels of oil every day. He emphasized that no one knows where the proceeds from this illegal trade are going.

Kawa Abdulqadir, a former member of the Kurdistan Parliament from the New Generation Movement (Newey Nwe), September 29, 2024. Photo: Abdulqadir’s FB

According to him, the revenues from taxes and domestic resources are also not being utilized for their intended purpose of paying civil servants.

The KRG’s financial management has been a long-standing issue. In 2024, the Iraqi government transferred 11 trillion 561 billion dinars to the Kurdish administration for the salaries of employees in the region. However, Abdulqadir claims that this amount was not fully distributed to workers, and much of it was reportedly used by KRG officials to cover their own salaries.

On Saturday, Iraq’s Finance Minister Taif Sami confirmed that the federal government had sent full salary allocations for Kurdistan’s employees for 2024. Sami also criticized the KRG for not delivering oil and non-oil revenues to Baghdad, which could have alleviated the region’s financial crisis.

“The Kurdistan Region’s non-oil revenues exceeded 4 trillion dinars, yet only 320 billion dinars have been transferred to the federal government,” Sami said. “The Ministry of Finance is not responsible for the non-disbursement of these funds to eligible employees.”

Corruption within Iraq’s Kurdish region remains a serious concern. Kurdish lawmakers, watchdog organizations, and leaked documents have all raised alarms over missing billions of dollars in oil revenues.

The region has long been regarded as one of the most corrupt in Iraq, with the oil sector at the center of the controversy. The lack of transparency surrounding smuggled oil revenues and mismanagement of funds continues to fuel public discontent.