Iran’s Sovereign Wealth Fund Down To A Fraction Of Deposits
Mardo Soghom
Iran International
Iran has spent most of its national sovereign wealth fund in the past decade or so amid sanctions, the chairman of the national inspectorate said Sunday.
Iran International
Iran has spent most of its national sovereign wealth fund in the past decade or so amid sanctions, the chairman of the national inspectorate said Sunday.
In the third annual gathering of officials to discuss the National Development Fund (NDF), the chairman of the National General Inspection Organization, Zabiollah Khodayan finally came up with general but clear figures about what the fund represents.
The fund collected $150 billion over the years from saving a portion of Iran’s oil export revenues, but successive governments dipped into the fund and spent $100 billion, while another $40 billion “was borrowed” by state entities, Khodayan said. So, in short, Iran has only $10 billion saved, which is negligible compared with other oil-exporting countries.
In contrast, the United Arab Emirates has more than one trillion dollarssaved in several sovereign wealth funds, an even Oman, the poorest of Persian Gulf oil exporters has $17 billion.
Khodayan argued that the main reason why NDF has not been successful is lack of transparency by the government. While governments dip into the fund to finance their deficits or projects, the public is usually kept in the dark.
Since its establishment in 2000 as a currency reserve to supplement the Oil Stabilization Fund, successive governments dipped into the NDF for current spending, including the withdrawal of billions of dollars for military spending. The administration of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (2005-13) borrowed heavily from the fund, which contained $24 billion when he was elected, even though Iran earned an estimated $700 billion from oil exports during his presidency.
This was the highest amount the country had earned during 100 years of oil production. The populist president withdrew $2.7 billion to pay New Year cash handouts to all Iranians in 2013.
In the last three years of Ahmadinejad’s presidency, Iran’s oil exports declined because of international sanctions imposed to force Tehran to accept limits to its nuclear program. After a brief respite in 2016-2018 when the JCPOA nuclear deal was in effect, the United States imposed fresh sanctions in 2018, which slashed oil exports by as much as 90 percent in 2019-2020.
This brief overview of the past shows that although sanctions had a major role in limiting the growth of Iran’s sovereign wealth fund, financial and budgetary mismanagement has also played a role. Otherwise, with saving 20-30 percent of oil export revenues since 2000 should have made the fund worth at least $250 billion.
Another factor is the inefficiency of Iran’s state-controlled economy, which has made the state largely dependent on crude oil exports to finance government budgets.
Khodayan in his remarks also argued that wealth funds should not be considered as instruments for stabilizing the foreign currency markets. He was referring to efforts by successive Iranian governments to dip into the fund to defend the ever-declining national currency, rial. From Ahmadinejad’s time, the rial has declined 50-fold from 10,000 rials to the dollar to more than 500,000.
Although sanctions were the main reason for the disastrous performance of the national currency, capital flight in the past 15 years has played a major role. Government officials have indicated that capital flight has been well over $10 billion a year.
Both Iran’s inefficient economy and its constant confrontation with the United States and its allies eroded investor confidence, which led to people investing in other countries.
Khodayan also complained that although NDF has lent $40 billion for various projects, it has no control over how the money is spent. “The fund has no role in studying projects that receive financing. Also, the Central Bank fails to properly manage eight foreign currency accounts holding the funds.”
Mohammad Javad Haghshenas, a prominent member of the reformist National Trust Party says the situation is like a fire under the ashes. Decision-makers in the Iranian government simply ignore the underlying reasons for last year's nationwide protests and attribute the crisis to the "enemies."
He also suggested that President Raisi should resign and call for early elections.
Haghshenas warned that "any moment, another mistake like what happened in September and led to the death in custody of Mahsa Amini, or a new problematic policy can lead to a new crisis and new waves of protest."
He pointed out that ignoring popular demands and the protests that are still continuing, as well as problems such as inflation, financial corruption, economic problems, red tape, government's intervention in people's private lives and the inefficiency of the government bureaucracy can deepen the ongoing crises.
He added that one of the ways out is returning to the Constitution, which is a document the nation agrees on. However, a major part of the Iranian opposition, and even former high-ranking officials, believe that the current Constitution, designating clerical rule, is one of the root causes of Iran's problems. Many among the opposition want a return to the 1905 constitutional monarchy and others want a secular, democratic republic.
However, Haghshenas says the hard core of political power in Iran [meaning Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei] should pave the way for upholding the Constitution by September particularly because a parliamentary election is going to be held in March next year. He also pointed out that none of the crises that have led to major protests since 2019 have been resolved. Meanwhile, he suggested that Raisi should resign and call for an early Presidential election.
He also suggested that the Guardian Council should do away with its selective supervision of vetting candidates before elections. The Council, a constitutional body indirectly controlled by the Supreme Leader, has the power to disqualify candidates for no clear reason. It used its power in the 2020 parliamentary and 2021 presidential elections to bar hundreds of candidates many of whom had previously served as lawmakers or as senior officials. The result was a massive rejection of ‘reformist’ candidates and handing full control to hardliners.
Meanwhile, Mansoor Haghighatpur, a moderate conservative lawmaker close to Ali Larijani the former Speaker of the parliament charged that a certain political group [meaning the ultraconservatives] want to run the country with a team of only 30 to 40 individuals.
Haghighatpur further charged that the ruling group only believes in its own members and considers other politicians as traitors and spies. His comment followed accusations of espionage against former President Hassan Rouhani and his aides and IRGC figurehead Hossein Taeb's call for putting Rouhani on trial.
He said that this group of 30 to 40 ultraconservatives came to the forefront of political leadership since former populist President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad came to power in 2005 and lately took over the entire political establishment after the 2020 and 2021 elections.
In another development, Iranian traditional conservatives flagship daily newspaper Resalat wrote on Saturday that President Ebrahim Raisi’s administration does not understand concepts such as inflation and repayment of loans. The daily told Raisi and his ministers: "Your daily journey starts from the parking at your home and ends in the parking lot of your office and you do not know anything about the people's problems."
Resalat added: "As a result, you constantly ridicule the people and subsequently the people turn their backs on you." The daily was referring to a statement by Raisi's Welfare Minister Solat Mortazavi who when asked last week how low-paid workers can make ends meet, he replied: “They should save!" Resalat called the minister's reaction "an outcome of ignorance."