The Social Security Organization's budget deficit of thousands of billions of tomans for paying salaries

Hadi Aboui, Secretary General of the Supreme Center of Workers' Trade Unions, reported on the Social Security Organization's deficit in resources for paying salaries and wages in 1401 and asked the Parliament's Consolidation Commission to pay special attention to this issue.

In an interview with ISNA news agency on Thursday, January 13, he announced a seven-month postponement of social security payments to medical centers and predicted that the organization would face a monthly budget deficit of 11 trillion tomans next year to secure its resources.

Hadi Aboui said about the current situation of the organization: "This year, the Social Security Organization will pay more than 17 trillion tomans for the salaries of pensioners and retirees, and it has a monthly liquidity deficit of between five and six trillion tomans to pay salaries."

The Secretary General of the Supreme Center of Workers' Trade Unions announced that the social security debt to banks due to the deficit in salaries currently exceeds 90 trillion tomans, and said that it seems that by the end of June next year, this debt will reach more than 135 trillion tomans.

Hadi Aboui, stating that the Social Security Organization is facing numerous problems, suggested that 150 trillion tomans be allocated to this organization in next year's budget bill in cash or in the form of offering shares and real estate to resolve these problems.

Equalizing pensioners' salaries and paying the government's debts and liabilities to the Social Security Organization are other issues that Hadi Aboui has asked the Parliament's Consolidation Commission to address.

Over the past few months, a number of retirees in various cities in Iran have repeatedly held protest rallies to protest their poor living conditions.

The main demand of the protesting pensioners is to have a pension commensurate with the average living expenses of a four-person urban family and to reform pensions at the level of 12,500,000 Tomans as the base salary and livelihood basket.

The livelihood crisis and rampant inflation in Iran in recent years have led, in addition to the protests of retirees, to dozens of protest rallies by teachers and workers, which have in some cases been met with severe repression and arrests of union activists by security agencies.

Source: Voice of America