TEHRAN – Iran has set ceilings for monthly salaries of political and non-political figures following widespread criticism of inflated salaries.

According to measures taken by the salary monitoring council, government officials including the heads of executive, legislative, and judicial powers, the first vice president, MPs, etc, are only allowed to receive maximum 100 million rials (roughly $2,800) per month, government spokesman Mohammad-Baqer Nobakht said in his weekly press conference on Tuesday.

The same figure for non-political figures, managers of economic institutions and factories will be 180 million rials (about $5,000), Nobakht explained.

“Any salary containing more than such figures would be illegal and lawsuit could be filed against such cases by the government.”

He said recently a report came out claiming that 1,000 top managers were earning huge salaries, but “only three percent - 30 or 40 of those managers - were identified to have bent the rules of payroll system to their advantage.” 

Following the repot “13 managers of economic institutions were fired” and some decided to resign, added Nobakht, who is also chief of the Management and Planning Organization.

He further explained that a sum of the money received by managers was returned to the public treasury.

The reason behind the high salaries was that “some executive bodies applied a particular rule and regulation that set them apart from other organizations to decide about their own salaries.” 

The list of company mangers or state officials who received high salaries is “long”, he said.

The spokesman listed the Guardian Council, MPs, Majlis Research Center, faculty members, the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB), judges, Assembly of Experts, Foreign Ministry, Intelligence Ministry, Central Bank, etc, whose payments were not monitored by the government.

To resolve the issue and prevent reoccurrence of inflated salaries, Nobakht said the government included such organizations in the “service management law of the country” to monitor all salaries.

And to help the government control officials’ income, the spokesman added monitoring bodies like the Supreme Audit Court and other related organizations are supposed to supervise all salaries on a monthly basis and report any violation to the government.

MG/PA