Comparing the budget of Iran's religious institutions with the budget of the environment and universities

Following criticism from Tehran's interim Friday prayer leader about the low and inadequate budgets for religious institutions and seminaries, a University of Tehran professor wrote a letter comparing the budgets of religious institutions with some important educational and government centers.

Sadegh Zibakalam, a professor of political science at the University of Tehran who has repeatedly criticized the allocation of large budgets to religious institutions, wrote in a letter to Kazem Sedighi, the interim Friday prayer leader of Tehran, on Wednesday, January 17, that the budget of religious and cultural institutions, which are largely unaccountable to the government, is tens of times the budget of organizations such as environmental protection.

In his letter, he presented the budget of religious and cultural institutions last year, and compared it with the budget of several universities and organizations, including the Ministry of Environment and Forestry, and wrote that none of these forty religious and cultural institutions and organizations is accountable to the government, the parliament, or any other institution for the billions of tomans in budgets they receive, and no oversight is applied to their income and expenses.

In his letter, the budget of Ferdowsi University of Mashhad is 320 billion Tomans, Tabriz University is 250 billion Tomans, Amir Kabir Polytechnic is 250 billion Tomans, Ahvaz University is 200 billion Tomans, and Kerman University is 170 billion Tomans. The budget of the Environmental Protection Organization is also stated to be about 300 million Tomans.

This is while about forty religious and cultural institutions mentioned in the attached table have received a total budget of more than eight thousand billion tomans. According to the attached table, in 2017, the budget of the Seminary Service Center was 800 billion tomans and the budget of the Supreme Council of Seminaries was 400 billion tomans. Also, the Basij cultural budget of 20 million was 1,150 billion tomans and the budget of the Islamic Propaganda Organization was 380 billion tomans. This table includes forty institutions and centers.

In his letter published on his Telegram channel, Mr. Zibakalam addressed the Friday prayer leader of Tehran: "I wish there could have been an initial survey of the people of Iran, and if the majority preferred that the country's religious affairs budget be 27 times the country's environmental budget, then spend that 300 billion (environmental) on the government's religious ideological propaganda."

Kazem Sedighi, the interim Friday imam of Tehran, stated during Friday prayers last week that the budget for seminaries is not sufficient and that the government should increase the budget for seminaries to improve the cultural situation. He also said that the budget for religious and cultural institutions does not even reach the level of some universities.

Meanwhile, the publication of budget figures for cultural and religious institutions that operate outside the government and are not accountable to the government has sparked much debate and criticism on social media and among members of parliament.

Source: Voice of America