1,000 Gov’t Estates on Divestiture List

About 1,000 estates owned by the government are on the divestiture list by the time the current fiscal is out next March, an official with the Economy Ministry said. 
The properties are estimated to be worth 66 trillion rials ($250 million), Fatemeh Dadgar, the ministry’s department for securities and government properties was quoted as saying by Fars News Agency. 
“For all practical purposes the properties on the list are unusable and many of them are abandoned for years,” she said. 
She said the properties are scattered across the country and provincial taskforces have been set up to address issues related to the divestiture. 
“They will look into any potential legal issue… and certify the particular asset is not needed and cannot be put to productive use.”
Dadgar said the move is backed by legal provisions in the March 2020-21 budget. 
The government says it expects to earn 400 trillion rials ($1.5 billion) this year from selling assets, including real estate and shares in listed companies.
However, experts cast doubt on the projection, saying it is unrealistic at best. The figure is ten times higher than the earnings realized last year from the sale of unwanted and unusable government assets.