On Wednesday, April 15, members of the Islamic Consultative Assembly added up to 3,500 billion tomans to Iran's defense budget, continuing to review and approve the 2016 budget bill.
According to the parliament's resolution, all revenues from granting exemptions to those eligible for exemptions with eight years of absence, up to a maximum of 3,500 billion tomans, will be spent on strengthening the defense capabilities of the armed forces.
This figure would be equivalent to one billion US dollars.
The parliamentarians also authorized the government to exempt all public service employees who have been absent for more than eight years from their duties by paying a fine for the period of absence, either in a lump sum or in installments, until the end of 2016.
Previously, in another resolution in the form of an additional note to the 2016 budget bill, the parliamentarians mandated the Central Bank to deposit all foreign currency returned from lawsuits filed in international bodies and foreign countries related to military contracts before and after the revolution, up to a ceiling of five trillion tomans, into specific revenue lines.
The specified lines are related to Iran's defense budget, and that resolution also meant increasing Iran's defense budget ceiling.
In the 2016 budget bill, which was submitted to the parliament with a delay and is currently being reviewed and approved, the total budget of Iran's five military institutions was proposed to be approximately 20,675 billion tomans, which is an increase of nearly 15.2 percent compared to the total budget of these institutions in the approved budget for 2015.
According to the Eqtesadnews website, the Basij organization's budget has been proposed at 1,070 billion Tomans in the budget bill. This amount has increased by about 5.4 percent compared to the budget approved in 2015.
The budget for the Armed Forces General Command Headquarters in Bill 2016 is proposed at approximately 1,458 billion Tomans, which is an increase of 13.7 percent compared to the budget approved by this institution in 2015.
The budget of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the Army is projected to be 5,743 billion Tomans in the 2016 budget bill, which represents an increase of nearly 16.3 percent compared to the budget approved for this staff in 2015.
The budget for the IRGC Joint Staff is proposed in this year's budget bill at 9,628 billion tomans, which is a 15.7 percent increase compared to the budget approved last year.
And finally, the budget for the Ministry of Defense in this year's bill is proposed at 2,776 billion Tomans, which is an increase of about 20.3% compared to the budget approved by the Ministry of Defense in 2015.
Mohammad Reza Pour Ebrahimi, spokesman for the Budget Consolidation Commission, praised what he called "the government's attention to the country's defense budget" in presenting the commission's report to the open floor of the parliament after the commission completed its work in reviewing and approving the budget bill.
