The Iraqi government has been channeling its efforts for three months now toward issuing a law to standardize the salaries of state employees. The task was asigned to the legal committee of the cabinet’s Secretariat General. “The law aims to bridge the gap between the salaries of state employees,” declared a member of the committee.

The attempts of high-ranking officials, however, to keep the salaries of employees in their departments the same gets in the way of yielding fruitful results.

The issue of salaries is controversial. When activities in the private sector hit rock bottom in 2003, as a result of the shortfall on the level of security and infrastructure, the government hired millions of individuals from different backgrounds. The recruitment provided the citizens with a fixed income and served as a shield preventing their engagement in violence.

Until this point, no official statistical study has been conducted on the number of state employees. Nevertheless, it is estimated — according to informed sources within the Ministry of Economy and Planning — that the number of permanent employees in the Iraqi government amounts to five million, half of whom are military personnel or members of the police force.