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Hamid Ahadi

As Europeans tighten their economic snooze on Iran, the Iranian government has ‎launched a series of measures to confront the new sanctions by using the authority vested ‎in the Supreme Leader.‎

Of these measures, the Memorandum of Understanding that was signed between the ‎Ministry of Oil and the Mostazafan Foundation (an economic conglomerate operated ‎outside the controls of the government and under the direct control of the Leader) is the ‎most important and has caught the attention of observers. But there is a history in such ‎measures. Two years ago when the UN Security Council passed its first economic ‎sanctions against Iran over the latter’s nuclear policy, the government turned over oil ‎projects worth $70 billion to Khatam-al-Anbiah bureau of the Passdaran Revolutionary ‎Guards. This purpose of this preventive move became clear later when prominent foreign ‎companies withdrew their operations from Iran. With that move and the purchase of a ‎number of specialized companies, the Passdaran entered the oil industry sector. Now with ‎the latest agreement, Mostazafan Foundation enters the global oil industry by bypassing ‎the normal legal mechanism while it lacks any serious experience in the field and stands ‎shoulder to shoulder with the Passdaran in its efforts to sell oil. The move comes from an ‎administration that is monolithic in its views and solutions, but which can create many ‎problems in the future.‎

A former Majlis assembly member told Rooz that the new arrangement and situation may ‎is unconstitutional because it removes the most important natural resource of the country, ‎and the principal source of the government’s budget from government control, where it ‎was also supervised by the Majlis.‎

Under the terms of this arrangement signed by Seifollah Jashnsaz, the managing director ‎of the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) and Mohammad Foruzandeh, the former ‎Passdaran Minister and managing director of Mostazafan Foundation, the foundation ‎acquires the right, along with the NIOC to sell oil in international markets.‎

The largest Non-Government Foundation
Mostazafan Foundation was created in the summer of 1979 with the initial capital coming ‎from private entities that were nationalized through the revolutionary courts following the ‎‎1979 revolution that overthrew the monarchy in Iran. Its purpose was to provide ‎assistance to the poor and destitute. But as time passed, the foundation turned into an ‎economic institution which is today considered to be among the wealthiest economic ‎corporations in the Middle East.‎

From a purely legal perspective, the foundation is neither a government nor a private ‎organization, but a public entity over which the government has no controls while it ‎operates directly under the orders from the Leader of the Islamic state and is thus ‎accountable only to him. The Majlis assembly has in the past investigated certain issues ‎but only with permission from the Leader.‎

The foundation is active in different fields ranging from trade, agriculture, transportation, ‎building construction, development, industries, mines and even cultural and social ‎spheres.‎

In addition to these, during the last thirty years, the foundation has implemented some of ‎the largest projects in the country such as dam, railroad and road construction, in addition ‎to oil and gas development and now for the first time in its history it will be able to ‎engage in oil deals.‎