Security staff cost PA 30% of overall budget

The security agencies deplete nearly a third of the PA’s spending costs according to reports examined by Al-Resalah newspaper.

This is seen to be an indication of the magnitude of attention and care provided to the security sector, especially in light of PA President Mahmoud Abbas’s sanctification of the security coordination, which he believes is the essence of the relationship with the Israeli occupation.

The number of security agency members, its structure, and the bill for their salaries, bonuses and spending, especially with regards to miscellaneous items, the use of vehicles and petrol are all ambiguous. There are no public reports of this, but some reports obtained by Al-Resalah showed that the salaries paid by the PA to its employees in the civil and military sectors amount to 54 per cent of its total annual spending.

The security sector’s spending reached over 30 per cent of the PA’s annual budget last year. Al-Resalah was able to compare the figures from 2011 and 2014 and found that in 2011 there were 65,750 military employees, 43 per cent of the total number of PA staff. This dropped to 64,680 in 2014.