Shocking figures for parliamentary salaries

Shocking figures for parliamentary salaries

2026-06-05 04:31

Sadiq Al-Azraqi
Shocking figures for parliamentary salaries: 12,000 employees or 3,000? The discrepancy in the numbers exposes budget gaps.

The statements made by economist Nabil Al-Marsoumi, in which he said that the number of employees in the House of Representatives and its affiliated bodies amounts to 12,480 and that they cost the state enormous sums of money, caused a great uproar. While the House of Representatives says that its employees are “less than a quarter of the aforementioned number,” citizens say that, even if the number is a quarter of what he said, i.e. 3,000 affiliates, it is a large and unnecessary number for a legislative institution and its financial costs are not insignificant. Observers also point to the proliferation of fictitious names over more than two decades, for which salaries are drawn on names that appear in the appointment files of people who do not actually work, at a time when unemployment is widespread among graduates and the population. How can this happen in a country already suffering from a financial crisis, and does the parliament need such a huge number of employees? Al-Marsoumi explains that this huge number of employees receive enormous sums of money that cost the state treasury about 551.202 billion dinars as compensation for parliament employees and tens of billions of dinars distributed on service and commodity requirements, asset maintenance, subsidies, interest, other expenses, obligations, external contributions, social welfare, and capital expenditures, bringing the total expenditure to 618.253 billion dinars.

The question touches on the core of the administrative and financial crisis that the government apparatus in Iraq is suffering from, specifically with regard to the inflation of the functional apparatus and the employment mechanisms that often deviate from the standards of actual need and efficiency.

The problem also relates to fictitious names (ghost employees), which has been confirmed even by former prime ministers. It is a symptom of a larger disease, which is the exploitation of employment as a tool for political gain or appeasement rather than as a tool for providing services, which has led to an inflation of numbers over election cycles without any real need.

In a political system based on power-sharing, public institutions are viewed as spoils of war where cronies and followers are appointed, leading to structural inflation driven not by work needs but by the exigencies of partisan appeasement. The continued reliance on paper files and traditional systems allows these fictitious names to persist. If salaries were linked to a strict and transparent central biometric system, most of these names receiving salaries without working would disappear.

From an administrative perspective, the legislative institution (parliament) is a rational, not a service-oriented, institution. This means it needs a limited number of qualified advisors and experts in law, economics, and security, along with administrative staff to conduct sessions and maintain archives. The aforementioned numbers, whether the figure of 12,000 is accurate or a quarter of that, clearly indicate the transformation of parliament from a legislative institution to an employment institution. Parliament does not manage productive sectors that require armies of workers and employees; rather, it is a decision-making institution. Continuing to spend on this type of employment in a country suffering from fluctuating oil prices, which is almost the sole source of the budget, is economic suicide for several reasons. One of these reasons is that the largest percentage of the Iraqi budget goes to salaries, leaving a meager percentage for investment. This explains the stagnation of projects and infrastructure. When the state provides unproductive jobs with guaranteed salaries, it kills the spirit of innovation and initiative among young people, pushing them to wait for government appointments instead of entering the private sector.

What is happening is not a coincidence, but rather a survival strategy for the current political system. An employee who receives a salary from the state, even without working, becomes a hostage to the existing system and forms a guaranteed electoral base. Any attempt to audit the number of employees or remove ghost employees is met with fierce resistance from the forces that benefit from these salaries distributed in the pockets of their followers. If employee data were available to the public and indexed electronically, the citizen or expert would not need to guess or doubt.

A comparison between the administrative structures of parliaments in advanced democracies and the situation in Iraq reveals a significant gap in the concept of public service and standards of competence. In parliaments worldwide, there is “intellect,” not just a mass of people. In democratic countries, parliament is viewed as a rational, specialized institution, relying on a limited number of qualified staff (experts, legal professionals, researchers) rather than sheer numbers.

International recommendations indicate that parliaments need agile administrative structures to support the representative in his legislative research and drafting of laws. Previous reports have shown recommendations that legislative institutions do not need more than 500 to 800 employees – even in densely populated countries – of highly specialized staff to provide real support to members. The employee in Western parliaments is a research assistant, legal expert, or policy analyst. In the controversial Iraqi context, a large part of the staff, whether a few thousand or more, are concentrated in administrative, service, or security jobs, which takes the institution out of its purely legislative role.

In the absence of a strong private sector, Parliament, with its independent budget and hiring power, has become a target for appointments made by political blocs, regardless of actual need. Instead of a digital parliamentary library and small, effective research teams, there are large numbers of redundant administrative positions. The presence of ghost employees, or those receiving salaries without working, inflates the figures to an extent that bears no resemblance to any globally recognized administrative structure. In developed countries, the payroll system is fully electronic and linked to actual working hours and specific outputs; meaning that an employee’s absence simply means the immediate cessation of their salary.

Our officials fear popular pressure and even being exposed on Facebook platforms, for example, but they will try as much as possible to cling to the current situation that perpetuates their practice of administrative and financial corruption. Some residents interpret the successive crises these days, the latest of which is the gasoline crisis and before it the cooking gas crisis and the rise in prices, as having come as a result of the corrupt officials’ influence to divert attention from their corruption, especially with the new government taking a few measures against the corrupt, including the dismissal of the Undersecretary of the Ministry of Oil due to corruption charges, as well as the spokesman for the Ministry of Oil.

This is not merely an administrative oversight; it is part of a deliberate distraction strategy. Daily service crises are manufactured to keep people preoccupied with the struggle for basic necessities like food, fuel, and electricity, leaving them unable to focus on scrutinizing major corruption cases or demanding structural reforms. When the government takes concrete steps, such as the recent dismissals in the Ministry of Oil, the typical reaction of the affected sectors is to create unrest by deliberately disrupting fuel supplies or interfering with resource distribution. This generates social discontent, directing public anger toward the government as a whole rather than focusing on the specific corrupt individuals who were dismissed or negatively impacted by these decisions.

shafaq.com