The government spokesman has described the parliament’s report about a large withdrawal of money from the National Development Fund of Iran by the government as “unreal.”At a press conference held on Wednesday after the weekly cabinet meeting, Mohammad Bagher Nobakht was asked about the $4.1-billion withdrawal on the part of the government from the fund’s budget. Rejecting the idea, Nobakht said the government has never done so since taking office last year. Nobakht, who is also the vice president for strategic planning and supervision, asserted that the figure is actually related to the revenues earned from selling oil through a UAE company, which later failed to clear its debt. At first, Nobakht said, the Emirati company refused to return the money to the central bank. “Over the past year, the two sides arrived at a repayment schedule and the government handed the funds back to the central bank,” according to Nobakht. He also stressed that the funds originally belonged to the oil ministry and should have been returned directly to it.
