Mr. Ali Larijani spoke to a press conference on the Budget Bill of the fiscal year beginning March 21, 2017 on Monday. He told the press conference that by the 2021, the end of the Six Development Plan, dependence of national economy to oil incomes should not exceed 20 per cent of the total budget. “The budget target of the Development Plan was set to be 8 per cent and investment was predicted to reach 21.4 per cent growth by the end of the Plan,” he said.
On the hotly debated Salary Bill Scandal, Larijani added that Parliament set the Scandal case a priority, assigning its Audit Court to look into the case, during which the Court surveyed the bills of about 100,000 government directors and heads of different organizations, only to find that 397 such heads of organizations enjoyed lucrative payments; “the Audit Court succeeded in restoring such lump sums to the public purse; those intransigent 10-12 individuals were also malleable when they faced litigation and the court; the question is why such abuses of public money should occur; the investigations indicated that there had been no limit to allowances and benefits in such government sinecures; so the Parliament sought to address the legal gap and thus set a cap to such payments in benefits,” he told the press.
Larijani described the conduct of foreign economic firms as ‘naughty,’ failing to fulfil the expectations high in Iranian side to bring investments into the economy. On May Presidential elections, he said he would not comment or intervene in elections, but had cordial ties with Mr. Rouhani, the sitting president.
On a question whether Principlist-Reformist factionalism would help Parliament to attend its inherent duty in serving the nation, Larijani quoted the Leader of the Islamic Revolution who once said that an eclectic type of Reformist Principlism would provide the ultimate solution to the problems of the nation.
On Saudi Arabia and Yemen, Parliament speaker said that Saudis should review their conduct in Yemen, since the Islamic Republic of Iran would come to a compromise with its neighbors in solving conflicts including in Yemen.
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