TEL AVIV – The Palestinian street is fuming over news that the Palestinian Authority secretly signed off on massive salary hikes and other perks for government ministers at a time when the Palestinian labor market was going through major cutbacks amid an economic crisis.
Documents leaked to an anti-corruption website showed that PA President Mahmoud Abbas personally signed off on salary increases as far back as two years ago, raising the salaries of PA ministers from $3,000 per month to $5,000 per month. The prime minister’s salary was raised to $6,000, according to one leaked document.
Salaries for civil servants in the West Bank range between $600-$1,000 per month.
According to two senior officials speaking on condition of anonymity, the pay hikes were also paid retroactively to 2014, giving additional stipends to the tune of tens of thousands of dollars per minister.
While Palestinians are outraged, the news does not come as a shock, with the public for years accusing the PA of corruption. According to a recent poll, some 80% of Palestinians believe the PA is corrupt.
“The cabinet members behaved as if the government is their private shop and they can take as much as they want without being held accountable,” said political commentator Ehab Jareri.
Ministers were also given lavish housing perks, including $10,000 a year to rent an additional house in Ramallah, and enjoyed inflated exchange rates for their salary with a 17% premium when converting from dollars to shekels.
Abbas, who was elected in 2004 and is now in the 15th year of a four-year presidential term, has become the target of scathing attacks by the Palestinian public. He has failed to achieve statehood, failed to hold onto the Gaza Strip, which the Hamas terror group took over in a bloody 2007 coup, failed to reach a unity deal with Hamas despite countless attempts over the years, and unemployment is at 20% in the West Bank.
“I think this is just the tip of the iceberg of corruption in the Palestinian Authority, considering that we couldn’t have access to more important information,” Majdi Abu Zeid, a researcher for anti-corruption Palestinian watchdog group Aman, told the Associated Press.
Aman also released a report on PA corruption such as fudged budgets and nepotism, including senior governmental positions offered to relatives of employees.
“The Palestinian Authority lost the trust of people a long time ago because of its unlawful practices,” said analyst Jihad Harb.
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