Corruption in the Kurdistan Regional Government, unemployment, and rising prices of goods and basic necessities

Hakar Raza

The negative impacts of corruption have deeply affected people’s lives and livelihoods in the Kurdistan Region. Corruption has led to a significant increase in the cost of goods and services. As corruption grows, it directly affects public services such as education and healthcare. When we look at the Kurdistan Region, we see that most healthcare and education services have been handed over to the private sector without taking into account people’s living conditions and ability to afford these services.

Corruption has functioned in such a way that the Kurdistan Regional Government has been unable to pay salaries to its employees on time. Economic development in the Kurdistan Region has completely stalled, leaving the region in a severe and stagnant economic crisis, continuously suffering from a lack of revenue sources.

The non-functioning of the Kurdistan Parliament, due to the interests of the two ruling parties, has further increased corruption. As a result, legal and oversight institutions are unable to properly monitor governmental and non-governmental bodies. In this way, corruption has had a dangerous impact on public consciousness and trust in the Kurdistan Region. People have lost, or significantly reduced, their trust in the government and the judicial system. Corruption has also affected the psychological well-being of individuals and weakened social relationships.

At the same time, corruption has obstructed the development of democracy, and democracy in the Kurdistan Region continues to decline. People are continuously killed, arrested, or detained for expressing differing opinions. Various charges are fabricated against them, leading to imprisonment. When civil society organisations warn about the decline of democracy in the Kurdistan Region, corruption becomes a cause of social discrimination and an obstacle to the equal application of the law.

This is clearly evident in the fact that laws in the Kurdistan Region are applied more strictly against the poor, while corruption contributes to the spread of poverty and environmental degradation. It also leads to the failure to implement environmental protection laws, effectively ignoring regulations intended to protect the environment.