Gaza civil servants' salaries remain unpaid
The Palestinian national reconciliation government is suffering from a deficit that poses a challenge to the payment of the salaries of Gaza's government workers.
RAMALLAH, West Bank — The prime minister of the Palestinian national reconciliation government, Rami Hamdallah, declared Oct. 3 that an agreement had been reached with Qatar, in coordination with the United Nations, to secure the transfer of a financial payment before the end of the month to a number of Gaza civil servants under the previous Hamas government. However, Ministry of Finance figures show that the government can't fulfill its financial obligations to these workers on a regular basis, because of its dependency on receiving regular financial aid from donor countries.
The financial arrangement with Qatar of $20 million came after the Fatah-Hamas agreement was signed on Sept. 25 in Cairo. The most prominent of these issues is paying the Gaza government workers’ salaries. In accordance to the Fatah-Hamas agreement, the reconciliation government, which was sworn in on June 2, would administer the affairs of the Gaza Strip.
