Azerbaijan, Baku, Dec. 2 / Trend M. Moezzi/
Iran's Target subsidies programme has paid out nearly $8 billion more in subsidies than it has earned, Fars news cited a member of the parliament's planning and budget commission Moussa Al-reza Servati as saying.
The targeted subsidies programme has paid out more than $25 billion (about 250 trillion rials), on a budget of about $18 billion (180 trillion rials). The $8 billion difference has been borrowed from Iran's Central Bank and must be repaid to the treasury by increasing prices for energy carriers.
Iran's parliament reported earlier that President Ahmadinejad's government faces a $15.6 billion deficit to pay its citizens, the Iranian daily Shahrgh reported.
The Iranian government pays each citizen $45 a month as a compensation for a part of their commodities and energy subsides which were cut in December 2010.
The special parliamentary commission for economic reform reported the government faces nearly a $16 billion deficit from its budget in the current solar year (started on March 20, 2011) to pay out this cash. The commission believes the government has already used oil revenues illegally to pay for the removed subsidies.
Head of the Supreme Audit Court Abdolreza Rahmani Fazli said earlier that the Iranian government has transferred $15 billion into citizens' bank accounts in order to keep up with the 'removing subsidies' plan.
"The government borrowed $5 billion from the Central Bank of Iran, while $5 billion was allotted out of the public budget and $3 billion from oil revenues to pay off removing subsidies," Rahmani Fazli added.
The Iranian government is expected to save $54 billion by removing subsides this solar year. Eighty per cent of this sum will be transferred to citizens' bank accounts to compensate for subsidy removals, and twenty per cent should be assigned to industry and the construction sectors.