The announcement came as Abadi made preliminary moves toward arresting top officials – including former prime minister Nuri al-Maliki – accountable for military disasters in the cities of Mosul and Ramadi, which have been seized by the Islamic State (IS) group.
Abadi rolled out a reform programme a week ago in response to popular pressure from weeks of protests against corruption and poor services, and to a call for drastic change from Iraq’s top Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani.
Parliament approved Abadi’s plan along with additional measures two days later, but a major gap remains between announcements and implementation.
Abadi moved to eliminate the three deputy prime minister positions as well as the minister of human rights, ministries of state for women’s affairs and provincial affairs, and another minister of state.
The ministry of science and technology will combine with the ministry of higher education and scientific research. The ministries of health and environment will merge. The municipalities ministry will combine with the ministry of construction and housing. The ministry of tourism and antiquities will merge with the culture ministry.
Amid a major heatwave that has seen temperatures top 50 degrees Celsius (120 degrees Fahrenheit), protesters have railed against the poor quality of services, especially power outages that leave just a few hours of government-supplied electricity per day.
Thousands of people have turned out in Baghdad and cities in the Shiite south to vent their anger and pressure the authorities to make changes.
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