Hamas declaration to compensate unpaid employees sparks controversy

The declaration of a senior Islamic Hamas movement leader on Saturday to compensate the Gaza employees, who haven't been paid their monthly salaries for three years, by providing them pieces of land, has sparked large controversy on the legality of the action.

Zeyad Zaza, the former deputy prime minister of the former Hamas government, told Xinhua on telephone that within the coming few weeks, pieces of lands will be delivered to the employees in the Gaza Strip instead of their salaries they haven't received.

"This includes paying all their debts of electricity consumption bills." Zaza said, adding that "by this measure, the employees will be paid all their salaries for the last three years, and their bills of electricity will be also covered, and the process will zero all the government's debts to the employees."

Right after Hamas' violent takeover of the Gaza Strip in the summer of 2007, the beginning of the Palestinian internal split, Hamas appointed around 45,000 employees and paid their monthly salaries until an agreement was reached to form a consensus Palestinian government, which refrained from paying their salaries because no enough budget for it.

Zaza declined to unveil the sum of the employees dues, however, he said that around 1,200 dunums (1,200,000 square meter) of land will be equally delivered as pieces of property of land to each employee, adding that these lands are classified as governmental lands in northern and southern Gaza Strip.

Asked if the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC), the parliament of the Palestinian (National) Authority, would accept the action, Zaza said "there is no relation between the action and the PLC because it is an executive action of the government that doesn't need the PLC approval."

For his part, chairman of the Supervisory Committee of the PLC Yahya Moussa, said there is a project bill sent by the land authority in Gaza to the PLC that is linked to the establishment of eight associations of housing for low-income government employees' salaries to resolve the crisis in Gaza.

"The PLC hasn't yet discussed the mentioned bill and it has not been decided upon," Moussa told Xinhua, adding that "the bill is awaiting the maturation of views and discussions on it."

He also said that "regarding the establishment of the housing associations, the bill had been approved by the previous governments since the establishment of the Palestinian Authority in 1993, and has already been invoked in several areas in the Gaza Strip."

Moussa stressed that there should be a search for effective and serious solutions to the crisis of overdue salaries to civil servants "in light of the siege imposed on the Gaza Strip."

For his part, human rights researcher and writer Mustafa Ibrahim expressed hope that the plan of the distribution of public land in Gaza will be within the framework of the political pressure on the consensus government and not a trend to be implemented in practice.

"No one has the right to own a government land that is linked to the fact that the future of the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, who have limited resources, with respect to restricted land and have high rates of population increase," he said.
Sources: XINHUA