The head of Iran’s Parliament, Ali Larijani, has written to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei to criticize the administration’s implementation of the second phase of government-subsidy restructuring, which he describes as illegal, the Mehr News Agency reports.
It’s the latest acrimonious volley in the ongoing dispute between Parliament and the Ahmadinejad administration.
“In view of the government budget for the new fiscal year and the economic situation of the country," Larijani writes, "the country is not prepared for the implementation of the second phase of restructuring government subsidies.”
He adds that the administration is in violation of the law because it has begun the second phase even before Parliament has approved the New Year budget.
The Ahmadinejad administration has distributed an extra 28 thousand toumans to households on top of the usual cash benefits that Iranian families have been receiving to counter the effects of cutting government subsidies on energy and food staples.
The amount of the cash payouts was to be increased in the second phase; however, Parliament has not approved it, because the administration has not shown where the money will come from and has even announced that it went over budget in the first phase.
