The endless buts and ifs of Shakha Adalat
Justice shares are a type of subsidy that was established by the subsidy-oriented government of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. These shares were supposed to change the lives of low-income people, but now these shares have become a problem for the needy and the government.
The registration of the heirs of the Justice Shares was supposed to be done in June of this year, but officials say that this will definitely be done in July.
The Deputy Director of Management and Resources Development of the National Welfare Organization stated that this year only people covered by the Relief Committee and the Welfare Organization can register to receive justice shares, adding: "New beneficiaries do not need to provide documents to register, because their list will be provided by the National Welfare Organization to the Privatization Organization so that justice shares can be paid to them after going through legal and administrative procedures."
The initial "Justice Shares" plan was to sell a portion of the shares of certain state-owned companies to lower-income groups. This plan was approved by the then Cabinet in February 2005.
In the first phase, the Justice Shares were allocated to some people covered by the Relief Committee, the Welfare Organization, and unemployed veterans, and the beneficiaries were given Justice Shares cards. The value of these cards was initially 500,000 Tomans, which was later increased to 1 million Tomans.
In November 2006, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, at a ceremony, described the transfer of the Justice Shares as a “great transformation” that would lead to “fair distribution of government wealth among different segments of society.” Under the pretext of the Justice Shares, the government was allowed to transfer 80 percent of the shares of large state-owned factories and enterprises to the private sector and cooperatives, and to distribute the dividends to the people.
Ali Tayebnia, the Minister of Economy of the 11th government, believed that the equity share and its implementation had dispossessed 62 economic enterprises.
In mid-January 2016, the Securities and Exchange Organization announced that the amount of profit received by Justice Shares from 60 companies in the stock portfolio was 199,150 billion rials. However, governments deposit a small amount of this profit once a year into the accounts of people who have successfully registered in the relevant systems.
On June 1 of this year, the private organization announced: "It will deposit dividends for the years 1399 and 1399 into shareholders' accounts." According to Mahmoud Hassanloo, Technology Director of the Central Depository Company for Justice Shares, those eligible for Justice Shares dividends who held shares worth one million tomans will receive or will receive about one million and 70 thousand tomans, and those who hold shares worth 532 thousand tomans will receive or will receive about 580 thousand tomans.
Fars News Agency believes that in the past sixteen years, about 50 million people have received equity shares, but the head of the Privatization Organization in the Raisi administration said that "we still do not have an exact number of equity share heirs, because a correct definition of equity heirs has not been proposed." This is while it was previously said that the number of equity share heirs was about 20 million.
Source: Voice of America
