A member of parliament reported that the Parliamentary Research Center has reviewed the budget situation for the past Persian calendar year (starting March 21) and found that the budget for 1402 (March 21, 2023, to March 21, 2024) has a “very high imbalance.”
Gholamreza Tajgardoon told the parliamentary news agency that the report from the Parliamentary Research Center indicates severe deficits and a very high imbalance in budget items and performance over the past year.
The head of the Parliamentary Planning, Budget, and Accounts Commission added that according to this report, in 2023, the government’s main foreign exchange expenditures amounted to over $18 billion, of which $12 billion was provided through the government budget, leaving a deficit of nearly $6 billion, which was withdrawn from the Central Bank’s foreign exchange reserves and the National Development Fund.
He stated that approximately 140 to 150 trillion tomans (around $2.285 to $2.449 billion) of the targeted subsidies budget were also unrealized.
Recently, the Court of Audit also released a report on the government’s widespread violations regarding targeted subsidies, particularly wheat subsidies, stating that aside from tens of trillions of tomans in irregularities in subsidy financing, the government forced the Central Bank to withdraw over 31 trillion tomans (about $506.122 million) without legal procedures from the accounts of executive agencies and deposit it into the Targeted Subsidies Organization’s account.
The widespread budget imbalance last year contrasts with former Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi’s claim in May 2024 that the government had not had a budget deficit since 2021.
His statements come while Central Bank statistics show that the government’s budget in 2021 faced an operational and capital deficit of 213 trillion tomans (about $3.478 billion), which increased to 295 trillion tomans in 1401.
The Central Bank has not yet released the budget realization status for last year, but previously, the Parliamentary Research Center predicted that the operational budget deficit for 2023 would be about 455 trillion tomans (around $7.428 billion), equivalent to 20% of the government’s public budget.
To cover the budget deficit, Ebrahim Raisi’s government, contrary to its promises to stop debt growth, engaged in extensive borrowing from domestic banks. Central Bank statistics show that since the 13th government took office last February, the government’s debt to domestic banks has more than doubled, reaching a staggering 1.31 quadrillion tomans (around $21.387 billion).
The National Development Fund also states that the government owes it $100 billion.
