Source: Rooz (Author: Amin Raufinejad)
30 September 2008
In a letter to Iran’s first vice-president Parviz Dawoodi, the newly appointed head of Iran’s National Accounting Agency Abdolreza Rahmani Fazli, who is also a close associate of Majlis Speaker Ali Larijani, accused the government of violating a law regarding the approval of implementation standards of the 2008 national budget.
Alef news website which first reported on the letter, explained the letter to contain the following: “The National Accounting Agency shall interpret the expenses of the government to be unacceptable on the basis of the unlawful regulations of the government, and any government director who expenses the public budget on the basis of the unlawful government regulation shall be prosecuted.”
The National Accounting Agency which was created according to articles 54 and 55 of the Iranian constitution, meets under the guidance of the Majlis and is tasked to review and monitor all government and public accounts which use money from the state budget.
Rahmani Fazli’s letter, which has not yet been published by any news agency is the first legal threat by the accounting agency against Ahmadinejad’s administration over an issue that although in controversy for quite some time now, has never been seriously pursued.
What is the issue?
The current problems go back to the time when the legislature and the executive were battling issues over the passage of the budget at the Majlis. At the time, Ahmadinejad’s administration claimed to institute “fundamental changes” in the way the budget law was written, and in that process reduced the number of agencies and government organizations that would receive their budget directly from 709 agencies listed in the budget law to a mere 38, which was later modified to 39.
The government had decided to do this following its unprecedented decision to dissolve the Sazemane Modiriyat (State Planning) organization) but the Majlis modified the government’s budget bill so that any agency that if an agency was mentioned in the budget bill to receive government funds, then it would have to be listed as a separate item and thus receive its budget directly, rather than through the 39 agencies identified in the bill. But soon after the passage of the modified budget law in the Majlis, when time came for the government to issue executive orders and regulations to implement the budget law, the government ignored the changes and only listed 39 agencies to be the direct recipients of public money, forcing the remaining agencies to obtain their budgets from the original 39 rather than directly from the treasury. This was a direct violation of the budget law, something that had been repeatedly protested by Majlis representatives and also executive agencies and supervisory bodies of the government. But none of these protests had until now translated into any action, or even threat of an action. So the threat from the National Accounting Agency is a newsworthy event that raises the tensions between the two branches of government over a yet another issue.
Administration against two other branches
In the last week May 2008, the National Inspectorate Organization lead by Mohammad Niazi asked the government in a letter to, “Immediately correct the implementation regulations of the budget and thus prevent a law suit on behalf of the National Accounting Agency.”
The inspectorate organization had threatened that if the government did not change its illegal regulations, it would legally pursue the matter on the basis of article 170 of the constitution would pursue to annul the regulations through the State Administrative Court.”
And even though this threat and request remain unheeded by the administration, it clearly indicated the position of the judiciary on the issue. So now the administration is confronted on this issue by both other branches of government.
Filed under: Domestic Politics, Economy, National, Rooz , Abdolreza Rahmani Fazli, Ali Larijani, National Accounting Agency, Parviz Dawoodi
