A member of parliament: The Ministry of Oil owes 30 trillion tomans to Khuzestan

A member of the presidium of the Islamic Consultative Assembly has announced that the Ministry of Oil owes Khuzestan 30 trillion tomans and said that the Ministry of Oil has not yet been burdened with paying pollution taxes to the municipality and villages of Khuzestan.

Mojtaba Yousefi stated on Sunday, November 29: According to the law, one percent of the production and sale of polluting units should have been paid to the municipality and villages of that area as pollution taxes, but this law has not been implemented so far.

Apart from pollution charges, the government is also required to pay Khuzestan province’s “three percent” share of oil export revenues. The majority of Iran’s oil is produced in this province, but according to official statistics, the government paid about 40 percent in 2018, 20 percent in 2019, and about 12 percent last year of Khuzestan province’s three percent share of oil revenues.

Khuzestan Province is one of the most deprived provinces in the country, which has also been severely affected by the water crisis this year.

The huge debts of the Ministry of Oil to Khuzestan Province come at a time when the debts of the National Iranian Oil Company rose from $50 billion in 2018 to $60 billion at the end of 2019, and it was recently reported that this figure has now reached $70 billion.

Currently, the highest unemployment rate is recorded in Hormozgan Province at 18.2 percent, followed by Khuzestan Province with an unemployment rate of 14.3 percent, which ranks second in the country.

Source: Radio Farda