Withdrawal of $6 Billion from the Central Bank and Iran's Development Fund to Cover Budget Deficit

A member of parliament announced the review of last year's budget situation by the Research Center of the Parliament, which indicated that the budget for the year 1402 (2023) had a "very high imbalance." Gholamreza Tajgardoon told the Parliament News Agency, House of the Nation, that the report from the Research Center of the Parliament indicates a severe deficit and a very high imbalance in budget items and their performance in the past year. The head of the Parliament's Program, Budget, and Calculations Commission further stated that according to this report, in the year 1402, the government's main foreign currency expenditures exceeded $18 billion, of which $12 billion was covered by the government's budget, leaving a deficit of nearly $6 billion that was withdrawn from the foreign currency resources of the Central Bank and the National Development Fund. He mentioned that approximately 140 to 150 trillion tomans were also due to the non-fulfillment of the targeted subsidies budget. Liquidity in Iran has reached nearly 8,000 trillion tomans. The Court of Audit recently published a report on widespread government violations regarding targeted subsidies, particularly wheat subsidies, stating that in addition to tens of thousands of billions of tomans in violations in financing subsidies, the government forced the Central Bank to withdraw over 31 trillion tomans without adhering to legal regulations from the accounts of executive bodies and deposit them into the targeted subsidies organization. The extensive imbalance in last year's budget comes at a time when Ebrahim Raisi, the former president of Iran, claimed in May of this year that the government had not had a budget deficit since 1400 (2021). His statements come despite Central Bank statistics showing that the government's budget in 1400 faced an operational and capital deficit of 213 trillion tomans, which rose to 295 trillion tomans in 1401 (2022). The Central Bank has yet to publish the status of last year's budget fulfillment, but the Research Center of the Parliament had previously predicted that the operational budget deficit for the year 1402 would be around 455 trillion tomans, equivalent to 20% of the government's general budget. Ebrahim Raisi's government, in an effort to cover the budget deficit and contrary to its promises to stop the growth of debts, resorted to extensive borrowing from the country's banks; Central Bank statistics show that since the formation of the thirteenth government until last Bahman (February), the government's debt to the country's banks has more than doubled, reaching a staggering 1,310 trillion tomans. The National Development Fund also states that the government owes this institution $100 billion.