Parliament Slashes Budget

The parliament reduced the budget for the new Iranian year that starts on March 21 by 2.5 trillion rials ($67.6 million) as per the changes made by the Guardians Council—a state body charged with reviewing the bills passed by the parliament to ensure their compliance with Islamic and constitutional precepts, IRNA reported. The lawmakers had finalized an 11.5-quadrillion-rial ($306.6 billion) budget earlier this month. The budget included 3.88 quadrillion rials ($106 billion) earmarked as “general revenues”, in addition to a whopping 8 quadrillion rials ($213 billion) to fund state companies, institutions and banks. President Hassan Rouhani submitted the budget bill to the parliament early December.