Comparison of Budget for Iran’s Religious Institutions with Environmental Protection and Universities

Following criticism by Tehran’s interim Friday Prayer leader regarding insufficient budgets for religious institutions and seminaries, a Tehran University professor compared the budgets of religious institutions with some important educational and governmental centers in a letter.

Sadegh Zibakalam, a political science professor at Tehran University who has repeatedly criticized the allocation of large budgets to religious institutions, wrote on Wednesday, December 27th in a letter to Kazem Sedighieh, Tehran’s interim Friday Prayer leader, that the budgets of religious and cultural institutions, which are largely not accountable to the government, are dozens of times larger than the budget of organizations such as environmental protection.

In his letter, by presenting the budgets of religious-cultural institutions in the previous year and comparing them with the budgets of several universities and organizations including environmental protection and forestry, he wrote that none of these forty religious and cultural organs and institutions were accountable to the government, parliament, or any other institution regarding the billions of tomans in budgets they receive, and no oversight is exercised over their expenditures.

In his letter, the budget for Ferdowsi University of Mashhad was mentioned as 320 billion tomans, University of Tabriz 250 billion tomans, Polytechnic (Amirkabir) 250 billion tomans, Ahvaz University 200 billion tomans, and Kerman University 170 billion tomans. The budget of the Environmental Protection Organization was also stated as approximately 300 million tomans.

This is while approximately forty religious-cultural institutions mentioned in the table attached to the letter have collectively received over 8,000 billion tomans in budgets. According to the attached table, in 1396, the budget for the Seminary Services Center was 800 billion tomans and the budget for the Supreme Council of Seminaries was 400 billion tomans. Additionally, the cultural budget for Basij’s 20-million-strong force was 1,150 billion tomans and the budget for the Islamic Propaganda Organization was 380 billion tomans. This table includes forty institutions and centers.

Mr. Zibakalam in his letter, which he published on his Telegram channel, addressed Tehran’s Friday Prayer leader stating: “I wish a preliminary survey could be conducted among the Iranian people, and if the majority preferred that the budget for the country’s religious affairs be 27 times the country’s environmental protection budget, then spend that 300 billion (environmental protection) on propagating the government’s religious ideological propaganda.”

Kazem Sedighieh, Tehran’s interim Friday Prayer leader, during last week’s Friday prayer stated that the budget for seminaries is insufficient and that the government should increase the seminary budget to improve the country’s cultural situation, saying that the budget for religious-cultural institutions does not even reach some universities.

This is while the publication of budget figures for cultural and religious institutions that operate outside the government and are not accountable to it has prompted numerous discussions and criticisms on social networks and among parliament representatives.

Source: Voice of America