Government seeking elimination

Government seeking elimination of free bitumen

Referring to the submission of the bill simultaneously amending two different articles of this year’s budget law by the government, a member of the Parliamentary Program and Budget Commission told the parliament: “The fact that the government has raised the second part of the bill, which is related to customs rights, at the same time as the bitumen matter, means that the government itself did not want to vote on its double-emergency bill.”

Mohsen Zanganeh explained to the reporters about the government’s request to review the double-emergency bill amending two articles of the 1401 budget law and said: “The double-emergency bill that was voted in the parliament today had two parts; one part about bitumen and the other part about customs duties on goods.”

“There were two completely separate issues in the government’s double-emergency bill,” he said, adding that “it would have been much better if two bills had been submitted to the parliament separately. It was clear that the parliament would not vote on the first part of the bill, which was related to bitumen. The fact that the government introduced the second part of the bill, which deals with customs duties, at the same time as the issue of bitumen, means that the government itself was reluctant to vote on its double-urgency bill.”

This member of the parliament pointed out: “In the first part of the bill, the government has proposed that the resources for the free bitumen‌ the government is required to deliver from the internal resources of the National Iranian Oil Company on a monthly basis according to paragraph g of Note 1 shall be allocated after the realization of 485 thousand billion tomans of Note 1 from the place of petroleum sales and four and a half billion Euros for the field of defense. However, we all know that the realization of these figures will definitely last until the end of the year, and it is not the case that these resources will be provided in April and May. Therefore, in practice, the government seeks to eliminate free bitumen with this bill, and it is certain that the elimination of free bitumen will not be voted in the parliament.”

Zanganeh stated: “Regarding the first part of the bill, we believe that it means elimination of free bitumen, and considering that Note 14 has provided good resources to the National Oil Company, and this year the revenue of the National Oil Company is very good according to the government, going beyond the 14.5 percent share of the National Oil Company that they themselves had foreseen in the budget bill, in my opinion, eliminating free bitumen, which has a great impact on rural development and deprived areas, is not a very sensible action.”

This member of the Program, Budget and Accounts Commission continued: “Regarding the second part of the bill, which was related to customs duties, importers of all goods are required to pay import duties according to the customs law, which include two parts: customs duties and commercial duties. The commercial profit figure can be from zero to 25 percent, and the government is responsible for determining this figure, but the customs duty for all goods is set at four percent of the value of those goods according to the law. In the budget law, we have reduced this four percent to one percent for basic goods, livestock inputs, medicine and medical equipment. However, the government has demanded in its bill that the customs duty be reduced from four percent to one percent for goods whose import duty is less than 10 percent. In my opinion, this matter does not require a bill, because the government can set the commercial profit determined by itself to zero, thus facing no budget deficit. If customs duties are reduced from four percent to one percent, we will face a budget deficit of 28,000 billion tomans, which the government has proposed to provide from the sale of bonds, meaning that the burden and pressure of this action will be borne by the consumer.”

Stressing that “it was quite predictable that the discussion of this double-emergency bill, in which two different issues were raised at the same time, would not be voted on,” Zanganeh said: “We expect the government and the parliament to take responsibility for their actions in the current situation as the Supreme Leader has emphasized. If the government wants to present a bill to the parliament, it should do so quite transparently. In my opinion, presenting a bill to simultaneously amend two articles of the budget law with different topics is not appropriate. The parliament must also comment on various issues separately. Perhaps, I believe, if the bill on customs duties had been submitted to the parliament separately, the members would have agreed to consider it a double-emergency matter.”