Return of the 'Free Bitumen' Rent for the Government and IRGC in the Annual Budget Amounting to 20 Trillion Tomans

Results of a study indicate that the 'potential rent' in a clause of the budget notes for the year 1402, titled 'Free Bitumen', which is allocated to 'beneficiary groups' in the government and the IRGC, amounts to '20 trillion tomans'. The Open Data Iran database has reported that according to 'Clause K' of 'Note 1 of the current budget law', the Ministry of Oil is obligated to distribute the 'Free Bitumen' rent worth '20 trillion tomans' under the title of 'facilitating construction programs for beneficiary groups in executive and governmental organizations such as the IRGC and certain government ministries'. This research report adds: '48% of the free bitumen quota belongs to the Ministry of Roads and Urban Development to be used for paving main and secondary roads. Following that, the Housing Foundation and the Municipalities Organization of the Ministry of Interior have the highest free bitumen quotas with 20% and 17%, respectively.' Investigations by the Open Data Iran database reveal that 'the Construction Basij, an organization affiliated with the IRGC, is the fourth recipient of the free bitumen with a 7% quota. The value of the Basij's bitumen quota is about 1,400 billion tomans, equivalent to three times the budget line for the Basij in this year's budget.' According to this report, the free bitumen for the Basij is delivered for 'paving paths between farms, police stations, Basij resistance bases, martyrs' cemeteries, garden museums, and memorials of the Sacred Defense' and 'paving military and administrative bases and air force bases to this military-economic entity.' The subsequent ranks for receiving free bitumen belong to the Basij 'School Renovation Organization' in the Ministry of Education, 'Natural Resources Organization' in the Ministry of Jihad Agriculture, and also the Ministry of Industry, Mine, and Trade. Corruption and rent-seeking in the distribution of free bitumen have also been raised in previous years under this title in the budget law. The Open Data Iran database states based on 'reports': 'The benefits of free bitumen are divided among a network of oil managers, members of parliament, executives, contractors, and domestic and foreign intermediaries.' The 'Free Bitumen' plan was introduced in 2013 as a 'help to reduce the costs of government projects' and in 2019, the 'Court of Audit' announced that it had formed a case for it, and with increasing criticisms, 'the government removed free bitumen from the 1400 budget'; however, the eleventh parliament representatives added an amendment to the budget and reinstated the free bitumen plan. This research center emphasizes that before the start of the eleventh parliament and the coming to power of Ibrahim Raisi's government, 'media affiliated with the IRGC were among the main critics of free bitumen', but afterwards, with 'granting a 7% quota to the Construction Basij, the extent of the IRGC's media criticisms diminished.' The reduction in the IRGC's criticisms comes while the Fars News Agency, affiliated with this institution, in 2020 addressed the 'grounds for corruption in free bitumen', considering it a 'project fabrication' by 'National Iranian Oil Company as the custodian of granting bitumen to contractors' and emphasized that 'this company has no oversight mechanism over the execution and progress of projects' and for this reason 'some government managers collude with contractors' and 'by falsifying documents, they receive more free bitumen than needed.' This news agency affiliated with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps also reported 'underweighting by factories', 'using low-quality bitumen in projects', and 'smuggling bitumen' amounting to 'about 5.5 million tons annually' as other instances of corruption and rent-seeking in this area.