Qatar to help PA in paying salaries

AFP

Ramallah

Qatar is stepping in temporarily to help the new Palestinian unity government pay former employees of Hamas’s disbanded Gaza government, an official said yesterday.

Doha said it would contribute a total of $60mn while the Palestinian Authority grapples with a pay row, the first challenge for a government formed to try to end years of Palestinian rivalry.

Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah “received a phone call from the Qatari Prime Minister (HE Sheikh Abdullah bin Nasser bin Khalifa al-Thani), who told him that $20mn would be transferred each month for three months to pay Gaza employees”, government spokesman Ihab Bseiso said in a statement.

The money would go to the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority, Bseiso said, and a “special fund” would be set up to pay wages while the government discussed how to resolve the issue.

The row started when the PA’s Gaza-based staff received their salaries but their Hamas counterparts did not.

Former Hamas premier Ismail Haniya, who resigned after the unity government was formed last week, phoned Qatar’s Emir on June 5, when the dispute arose, to ask for his help in supporting the new government.

HH the Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani then “promised to help”, particularly with paying the salaries of employees, a Hamas statement said.