Analysis by PMOI/MEK
Iran September 3, 2019–According to Fars news agency, Mohammad Bagher Nobakht, Iranian regime President Hassan Rouhani’s deputy and director of Iran’s Planning and Budget Organization, said: “We are lacking serious budget resources to provide credit for the [Khuzestan] province’s important projects.”
It is worth noting that Khuzestan Province in southwest Iran is rich in oil. All the while, its population lives in utter poverty.
“We are facing a situation where we have to explain, while we can’t. I am not in a position to present you with a transparent report of the [government’s] finances, oil and other issues. Therefore, we have to manage the country with a broken heart and smiling face,” he added.
Nobakht further complained: “Our income resources have decreased from 448 trillion tomans [approximately $370 billion at a rate of 12,000 tomans per one USD] to 310 trillion tomans. However as much as we economized our expenses, it didn’t go below 386 trillion tomans. We decided to save 62 trillion tomans from our expenses and spend 76 trillion tomans from different resources.”
Now we see where that saving and economizing went.
And that’s while, according to a member of Iran’s Supreme Council for Labor, “the price of a food basket has surpassed the seven million toman threshold.” Around 14 million families of workers in Iran (about half of the population) live under the poverty line.
Now, if we add the 900 thousand teachers and their families, whose societal status has decreased due to a lack of proper income to the workers, not to mention the pensioners who are protesting every other day, and farmers who’ve lost their livelihoods, we get a big picture of what is really going on in Iran.
On August 31, Sedayeh Eslahat newspaper, close to Rouhani’s faction, published a revealing article claiming what the majority is not aware of.
“A large percent of the people’s deposits in banks are transformed to loans with a due date in 30 years and interest rates of one to two percent, and then used to buy luxury items or cars or make huge riches by managing directors,” the article reads in part.
“Indirectly, they are giving the managers access to the deposits,” the article continues. “One of the approaches that has created a variety of problems both for the people and the country, and has increased our economic problems over the past decade, is the hidden hands in the people’s pockets.”
“It’s still not clear when the officials will find a solution other than reaching into peoples’ pockets, but it seems like this is the most convenient and easiest approach to finance themselves and it’s the people who will take care of the management’s and authorities’ problems and not vice versa,” the piece concludes.
No need to mention that the problem does not end with a bank’s management because the bank’s management is just among the middle tier levels of the regime who are permitted to keep their positions, or even reach these positions, only by sharing the benefits with higher ranking officials from the political elite.
