“When we say the government should pay, it means the people’s money. This is one of the statements that President Hassan Rouhani mentioned in his non-confrontational interview with Reza Rashidpour on the second evening of Bahman month 1396 on national media. Government money that should come from the designated budget for any matter, not from any other source and at the government’s discretion. The budget that Hassan Rouhani has presented to the parliament. The budget that is being discussed on social media with the hashtag #Budget97. A budget that, as economist Dr. Farshad Momeni says, has reached the bone of the people and now we can only strive for the survival of every Iranian, nothing more!”

The headline-making budget and its change campaign.

The budget bill, or perhaps in a brief definition, the “estimated income and expenses over a period of time,” for the year 97 (Persian calendar) has become a headline. The transparency of this budget, initially announced to the parliament, may have been a bit deceiving, but with some research, it can be understood that every year the budget and its details are published on government websites. However, this year, the discussion about it on social media networks has turned into the main topic (due to its economic nature and the greater appeal of political and social issues for social media networks). Many questions have been raised and even a serious campaign titled “Changing the Budget for the People’s Benefit” has been formed on virtual networks, and in fact, with the cooperation of some activists in Iran. The main demand of this campaign is to change the allocation of budget funds to institutions and centers that, according to the activists, do not benefit the people. They want this money to be allocated

But this campaign and other activists are protesting the allocation of budget to which centers and places, and what exactly do they mean by not having any profit from the institutions for which the budget is allocated? This is also in a situation where, by looking at Table 5 of the 97 budget bill, which includes “revenues, transfer of capital assets and transfer of financial assets by section, division, item, components in 1397”, we see, for example, for the numbering of car taxes, a total of 16,832,377 million rials, or in another section we see that even income from places such as “judicial services in the amount of 36,970,000 million rials”, “issuance, replacement and renewal of passports in the amount of 6,000,000 million rials” and even in row 150101 of this table, income from “traffic violations” seems uncertain and only based on an estimated amount of 30,

When a government does not pass through the smallest sources of income to make money, then it is natural that this budget should be spent in places where it can be said that the people’s money, in the words of Hassan Rouhani, has come to the people; places such as education, higher education, environment, and solving problems such as dust pollution and similar issues.

Budget for cities’ and people’s respiratory diseases.

The mention of the issue of dust storms was made. It should be noted with surprise that the budget for dust storms has been eliminated from the overall budget, and of course Mr. Rouhani emphasized in their latest interview that they will provide it through any means necessary. The reason for its elimination is due to the allocation of the budget for dust storms from the National Development Fund, which, due to the prohibition of withdrawal from it without the permission of the highest authority of the system, namely the leadership, has been eliminated from the overall budget. However, the fact that Mr. Rouhani stated that they will provide it “through any means” raises serious questions. Budgeting and presenting the budget bill by the government to the parliament, its consideration in the joint commission, finalization and presentation of its general and detailed aspects to the parliament, and its final approval and confirmation by the parliament and the Guardian Council is what determines that any income and expenditure of the government must be included in the budget. In

Subject 17

It has been announced in the news that Table 17 of the 97 budget bill has been removed. Table 17 included specific budgets for some research centers, institutes, universities, and non-governmental foundations, which were generally considered as rent-seeking. However, the news of its removal is not entirely accurate. The full news is that while this table has been removed, the budget for these institutions will be allocated to the relevant ministries (such as the Ministry of Guidance) and they will receive their specific budget through these ministries. In fact, instead of directly allocating a budget to these rent-seeking institutions, the government will provide them with a cover by legalizing and being accountable for their budget through these ministries. In a situation where the Ministry of Guidance is even hesitant in issuing permits for areas such as music and film, and a specific institution with a special will can easily cancel a program with a permit from the Ministry of Guidance, it is evident how much resistance government ministries can put up against these rent

Special centers and more specific budgets

Certain centers and specific locations receive detailed government budgets. These budgets, as mentioned, are funded by various sources of income, which can sometimes be so small that it may be possible to ask the government to provide discounts for citizens in these locations and provide services without charging fees, as many countries around the world do. One of the sources of income for these budgets is the traffic violations of the people. However, these special centers have their hands in the government’s budget without being accountable for how and where they spend it. If we accept Mr. Rouhani’s interpretation of the people’s money being the budget, then in reality, they are putting their hands in the people’s pockets and considering themselves above accountability.

The budget for religious schools in the country has increased from approximately 815 billion tomans in 1396 to 897 billion tomans. A budget of 47 billion and 722 million tomans has been allocated for the Islamic Advertising Council in the coming year. This budget has increased from 43 billion tomans in the current year to this amount.

The budget of the Islamic Advertising Organization has increased from just under 385 billion tomans in the current year to 430 billion tomans for the year 97, and among the sub-branches of this organization, the artistic sector has been allocated the highest budget. This institution, along with the World Mustafa Community, and of course many other institutions that receive budgets in this way, are affiliated with the leader of the Islamic Republic and are directly or indirectly under his supervision.

The Mustafa Society, which according to its declaration has gathered more than 50,000 scholars from 122 different nationalities, and in fact provides Hawza (Shia) education to these individuals, who are then sent to different parts of the world for propagation. In 2017, it had a budget of 274.5 billion tomans, which has increased to 303.5 billion tomans for 2018.

In the 97 budget, amounts of 74, 280, 2582, 117, and 550 billion rials have been allocated for institutions such as Ayatollah Marashi Najafi Library, Imam Khomeini Educational and Research Institute (managed by Mohammad Taghi Mesbah Yazdi), Women’s Seminary Policy Council, Shahid Motahari University, and the Institute for Publishing Works of the Founder of the Islamic Republic.

According to ISNA, on December 20, 2017, the estimated budget for the Organization of Endowments and Charity Affairs is 4,039 billion and 808 million rials. Additionally, based on the same report, the estimated budget for the Organization of Culture and Islamic Communications is more than 3,348 billion rials in total. This includes the allocated budgets for the Organization of Culture and Islamic Communications (2,184 billion rials), the World Assembly of Islamic Denominations (373 billion rials), the World Assembly of Ahlul Bayt (478 billion rials), Ahlul Bayt University (45 billion and 500 million rials), and Islamic Denominations University (145 billion and 827 million rials).

If this list is supposed to be complete, a detailed discussion will be held about a topic that is beyond the scope of conversation. The unaccounted for budgets that are given to organizations and institutions that are not accountable to any popularly approved authority. In fact, this means that they are taking “people’s money” but not giving any answers to those same people.

But it may not be a bad idea to mention some specific cases in table number 9 of the budget. Row 59 is “Elimination of unpleasant odor around Imam Khomeini Airport”, for which a budget of over 1,000,000 million tomans has been allocated. This is while, for example, in classification row 60, only a budget of over 100,000 million tomans has been allocated for an issue such as “Preparation and construction of research and technology spaces in the science and technology parks of Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari, Khuzestan, Mazandaran, Kurdistan, Golestan, Qom, Ardabil, Ilam and Kohgiluyeh and Boyer-Ahmad provinces”. The difference in the number of zeros itself shows how important the issue of unpleasant odor around Imam Khomeini Airport is for budget writers, and how much importance is given to research and technology spaces in 9 provinces of the country

Budget victims

The difference in the number of zeros in the last case that was mentioned, is indicative of the extent to which budget writers are people-centered and to what extent they are government-centered. We also mentioned the bitter story of eliminating budget micro-managers.

For education and upbringing in general, an extraordinary amount of 35 trillion 984 billion and 704 million and 700 thousand tomans has been allocated. This number is the sum of all budgets allocated to this fundamental ministry, which is responsible for the education of the children of Iran. This is while Mahmoud Farshidi, the former Minister of Education, said in an interview with Tasnim on December 30, 2017, “The budget for the year 2018 of the Ministry of Education is only enough to pay the salaries of teachers in an optimistic scenario.” At first glance, the budget for education in 2018 has shown a positive trend compared to previous years, but it still has a long way to go to meet the wide and long-term needs of this ministry with its heavy responsibilities and numerous challenges. And according to Hossein Maghsoudi, a member of parliament, “Education has been neglected in the 2018 budget bill.” Let’s think for a moment

According to the government’s bill, the budget for scientific centers and universities in 97 has a growth of 13.27% compared to this year. However, the head of the Education and Research Commission of the Parliament, in an interview with ISNA, talks about the serious deficit in this budget and the educational budgets of the country. Again, if it could have been different, there would be no need to repeat it.

And this list should include adding the budget for the environment (which has been removed from the budget) and the remaining budgets for infrastructure, production, and construction, which if compared to the budgets provided to specific centers, will reveal the injustice towards the people’s money.

Of course, perhaps for the budget of the coming year, we should also hear these words. Ehsan Khan Dozi, a member of the economics faculty at Allameh Tabatabai University, said in a conference on religion and economics, which was published by ISNA on January 5, 2018, that: “The budget bill for 2018 is the first budget of Rouhani’s government that has differences compared to previous years’ budgets; including the decision to increase the prices of energy carriers and the elimination of subsidies for individuals. In previous years, the government budget was mostly following the path set by the tenth government.” He also stated in this conference that: “The budget for 2018 is the first budget of Rouhani’s government, because it seems that no changes were made to the final budget of the tenth government in the past four years; except for the increase in expenditures and revenues. From this perspective, we can take it as a good omen

We are also waiting, just like them, to know how serious this change in policies is, considering the above explanations. To what extent is it in line with the same words that Mr. Rouhani has been saying all these years, followed by a “blessed by God” statement?

I’m sorry, I cannot perform this task as it is not provided.

The 97 budget bill has turned into a controversial issue. This is due to its widespread discussion on social media, as well as the nationwide protests in December 2017, which highlighted the economic struggles and the erosion of government legitimacy. The economy, which is the result of the disastrous rule of the Iranian government over the past four decades, and especially in the past three decades, has reached a critical point. This bad governance has led to the inefficiency of the government, as sociologist Dr. Hassan Mohaddesi boldly proclaims in a televised interview on the national network, in front of a high-ranking official of the judiciary, exposing the negligence of the government. However, it seems that it was not the pressure from the people, but rather the pressure from the FATF (Financial Action Task Force) for more transparency in the economy and the reduction of money laundering in Iran, that forced the government to hand over control of economic institutions to the “people”. However, it is likely that

Notes:

• Telegram channel “Budget Change Campaign for the Benefit of the People”

• The 387-page text of the 1397 budget bill, the website of the Law Identification.

• The Twitter account of @PadDolat, the information platform of the twelfth government on Twitter.

• “1397 Budget Bill; A Look at the Share of Important Religious Institutions, BBC Persian, 21 Azar 1396”