Referring to the unreasonable salaries paid to senior officials and executives, now infamously referred to as “astronomical salaries”, a member of Majlis Legal and Judicial Commission said all salaries and payments to officials must be unambiguous.
A plan to make all payments to the top officials transparent and return unlawful pay to the treasury is under review by the parliament.
Mohammad Dehqan said there is absolutely no doubt about the necessity of reclaiming all the fat cats, stressed with the new law to make payments more open and take back excessive salaries, reports ICANA.
“Henceforth we will no longer witness astronomical paychecks.”
The plan to make all salaries transparent and return unconventional salaries to the treasury is currently under review in the parliamentary Social Commission and will soon be put to vote in the chamber.
Over the past several weeks, the media have published the payslips of some top managers of banks and other government and its affiliated companies. The figures are dozens of times the average monthly income of an urban household which is about $650.
The scandal has provoked widespread public wrath and compelled statesmen and policymakers to respond to the long-held concerns claims over the deep income inequality.
Restoring Trust
Dehqan said the public must know how much chief executives are paid, adding that not only the people having this knowledge is not wrong “but it will work toward restoring their trust.”
“If receiving such salaries are legitimate, then there is no ground for worry in case they are revealed and if they are illegitimate, then the culprits must accept the punishment,” he said.
Reiterating the need to remove all doubts about the paychecks, the legislator advised the head of the judiciary and the attorney general to follow up on bringing back all unlawful payments.
Two days ago, the president of the Central Insurance company of Iran said a part of the wages, perks and bonuses plus huge loans outside the norm of the CII have been returned to the treasury. Noting that salaries paid to CII workers are under review, Abdol Naser Hemmati said 70% of all astronomical salaries and 50% of loans given to officials working for CII had been returned to the organization’s coffers, “and the rest will be returned by next month.”
“Devising a lawful cap for the salaries is a necessity which will prevent corruption” said Dehqan. Earlier this month President Hassan Rouhani obliged all government and affiliated bodies to make public the salaries of their CEOs and managers, calling for effective measures to reform the current regulations on openness and transparency in all state and affiliated organizations.
