The main story of eight national newspapers in Iran, covering the ideologues and the ‎reformers, last week was reserved for the dissolution of the board of trustees of the ‎special Foreign Exchange Reserve fund (FERF).‎

Following the government’s disbandment of the board (that was created 9 years ago ‎during former president Khatami’s term to keep a reserve fund from the excess revenues ‎derived from the sale of oil and the price fluctuations in its market) and the passing of its ‎functions to the government’s Economic Council, in addition to the reformist newspapers ‎of the country, such as Etemad, Sarmaye, Hayat-e no, Sedaye Edalat and Mardom Salari, ‎three conservative newspaper (that support the administration) Hamshahri, Tehran ‎Emrouz and Abrar too criticized the government’s move.‎

The wide-ranging criticism reflected in the media was also supplanted by others. Majlis ‎representative Elias Naderan belonging to the conservative ideologues known as the ‎Principalists told ISNA and Fars news agencies that the government’s measure was ‎unlawful and that the administration needed to present a bill for its act to the Majlis.‎

Meanwhile, Baizid Mardoukhi, the secretary of FERF during president Khatami’s days ‎wrote in Kargozaran newspaper that “transferring the duties of the fund to the ‎government Economic Council in practice means dissolving the fund”, adding that the ‎Council functions on the basis of the government’s desires and instructions, meaning that ‎the independence of the Fund has been eliminated.‎

In its report, Kargozaran newspaper stressed, “With this move, the government now has ‎uncontrolled access to the foreign exchange funds, which are reported to total about $81 ‎billion.”‎

The conservative Hamshahri newspaper too wrote that while this decision by the ‎administration has raised the concerns of experts and specialists in the field, it asks, ‎‎“Does this change not raise the possibility of uncontrolled unilateral withdrawal from the ‎fund which was created to help remove the bottlenecks of the economy and assist the ‎private sector?”‎

Sarmaye newspaper raised another aspect of the issue and said that the decision would be ‎detrimental to the country private sector. “Some economic experts believe that the in ‎view of the extensive work that the Council performed, the dissolution of the board of ‎trustees of the reserve fund would add to the predicaments of Iran’s private sector ‎regarding obtaining foreign exchange and because of the government’s free access to the ‎funds. Other specialists have said that the dissolution of the board in reality means the ‎dissolution of the fund altogether and the continuation of the government policy and ‎practice of withdrawing funds from it at will.”‎