The PUK is suspicious, and the Turmen parties threaten they will organize protests and boycotts, about a decree by Rakan Saeed, Kirkuk’s interim governor.
The governor had sent a written decree to government institutions demanding the full name and ethnicity of all their employees. According to Dilan Ghafour, a member of Iraqi Parliament on PUK list, is meant to keep the rate of employees proportional to ethnic components, but he has suspicions.
Ghafour tol KirkukNow: “A balance must be kept at all the government institutions in the city, not only a few of them.” He stressed that it is not right to neglect one institution which has a majority of the employees are of Arab ethnicity and focus on another with a majority of employees of Kurdish ethnicity.
Ghafiur, who is of Kurdish ethnicity himself, added: “We have preservations about those efforts by the governor: for example, in the written decree a number of institutions are not mentioned, among them Kirkuk’s Agriculture Department, while the Baytulnahrayn Company, the institutions in Hawija and Taza that have a minority employees of Kurds, and their heads of departments are of other components, not Kurds.
If he considers himself the governor of all ethnicities, he has to treat all of them the same. There are also a number of security apparatuses in the city with a small number of Kurdish personnel. The same is with North Oil Company and other institutions.”
Ghafour continued mentioning another example, as he called it: “The position of Head of Production Committee is part of the share of positions for the Kurdish component [according to agreement], but others have been appointed as interim for years now. And Baghdad is refusing to accept the Kurish candidates suggested for that position.”
The issue of keeping a proportion in accordance with Kirkuk's ethnic make up at government institutions has been subject to conflicts between ethnic groups and is still not resolved.
On 19 August, the Iraqi Parliament summoned Kirkuk governor along with a number of other high officials in the Province. According to a statement by the deputy speaker of the Parliament, they were asked to keep a balance in hiring among different components in the province.
Muhammad Mahdi Bayati, head of Badr Organization’s North branch, said in a statement last week: “We will no acceprt any changes in administrative positions or new hiring, if an ethnicity balance is not considered.”
His statement came after the governor’s decree.
He adds: “Any attempt to make changes without the consideration of ethic balance, will lead to protests and boycotts. That’s why we demand they reconsider, before the people take to the streets.”
