Dispute Between Mehr and Tasnim News Agencies Over “Empty State Treasury”

Tasnim released a document showing that Hassan Rouhani spoke of an “empty state treasury” in his final days. Mehr news agency sharply criticized this report and asked Ibrahim Raisi and the prosecutor’s office to deal with these “completely erroneous” letters.

Tasnim news agency reported on Tuesday, November 26 (October 26) that it obtained a document in which Hassan Rouhani, the former president, officially declared to Mohammad Baqer Nobakht, head of the Planning and Budget Organization, in August of this year: “All treasury funds have been depleted.”

In this document, Mahmoud Vaezi, head of the president’s office, wrote to Mohammad Baqer Nobakht, head of the Planning and Budget Organization, on August 30, 1400: “Your letter number 194653 dated August 28, 1400 with the subject of requesting ‘payment of the amount referred to from the treasury for the completion and operation of the water supply project to Abyek‘ was received by the office of the respected presidency, with the following note: ‘All treasury funds have been depleted based on your requests, there are no funds available.‘”.

Tasnim added that various evidence and indicators, based on statistics from government and non-governmental centers, showed that challenges such as budget deficits, inflation, and economic recession are among the “unfortunate legacies” that gripped Iran’s economy in the first months of the new government’s tenure.

According to Tasnim’s report, a report recently attributed to the Central Bank showed that inflation in the first half of 1400 reached more than 50 percent. Additionally, a recent report from the Islamic Consultative Assembly’s research center indicated a budget deficit of at least 400 trillion tomans and insufficient budgetary resources in the current year.

Tasnim accused the Rouhani government of adding new expenses in the final days of the twelfth government, including salary equalization for retirees and teacher rankings, even under severe budget deficit conditions, which “all this evidence indicated the transfer of an ’empty treasury’ to the thirteenth government, although there was no official document to prove it”.

Strong Criticism from Mehr News Agency

Mehr news agency, following the publication of Tasnim’s report and the attached document, strongly criticized the attribution of the “depletion” of the state treasury to the former president Hassan Rouhani.

Mehr wrote: “What alone makes this letter questionable is that, aside from its strange wording and lack of confidential classification, it shows that apparently the head of the Planning and Budget Organization is unaware of the treasury’s situation and the president must inform him of the treasury’s status; whereas in principle, it is the president who should inquire about the treasury’s status from the head of the Planning and Budget Organization!”

According to Mehr’s report, this is the second time in recent days that correspondences and reports attributed to “the government and planning organization in the previous government” have been published, and previously, they had “incorrectly and contrary to all economic calculations and principles, claimed that the dollar price reached hundreds of thousands of tomans”.

Based on Mehr news agency’s reasoning, how could the treasury have been empty when, in recent days, Ehsan Khandouzi, the economy minister, has repeatedly and explicitly acknowledged on his personal social media page that the budget allocation for Shahrivar and Mehr months for the entire country was provided without borrowing from the Central Bank, and in Mehr month even without selling debt securities appropriately.

Yesterday, Abdolnasser Hemmati, the former Central Bank governor, announced the government’s “indirect” borrowing from the Central Bank by posting a tweet: “It was announced that there has been no borrowing from the Central Bank since Shahrivar. It is good to know that covering the deficit through pressure on banks and their funds also results in heavy withdrawals from the Central Bank, which has happened. The result is indirect borrowing and monetary base expansion.”

Mehr news agency deemed it necessary for the prosecutor to intervene as the public prosecutor and for security and intelligence agencies to deal with publishers of such “completely erroneous reports,” whether from within or outside the government.

Source: DW