The current economic crisis in Iran is continuing to go from bad to worse daily, with no end in sight to resolve the situation. Iranian state media have acknowledged that the Iranian regime’s president Ebrahim Raisi and his cabinet are unlikely to be able to resolve the hardships any time soon, if at all.
With the skyrocketing levels of inflation raising prices of even basic food items, Iranians are struggling to even put food on their tables. The consumption of items such as meat, eggs, and dairy products has had a dramatic drop with statistics suggesting by as much as 50 percent, as people simply cannot afford to buy them.
The state-run Kar-O Kargar daily wrote on October 3 that due to the rising inflation rate, yearly living costs for Iranian citizens have increased greatly in the past three years alone, from 40 million tomans in 2018 to more than 63 million tomans this year.
The National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) said, “In other words, Iranians can hardly make their ends meet despite living in one of the richest countries in terms of natural resources.”
The Hamdeli daily wrote in their recent publication that according to the Statistics Center, the inflation rate for September sits at 45.8%. The price for a basket of staple foods has quadrupled in the past 5 years alone.
The question as to why the economic problems in Iran are not actively being solved was posed by the Mardom Salari daily, who acknowledged that the regime’s “domestic and foreign policy does not serve to solve economic problems.”
The NCRI said, “One could argue that international sanctions on Tehran are also hurting Iran’s economic situation. International sanction does exacerbate this situation, but they could be lifted if the regime stops using Iran’s national wealth to fund terrorism or continue its completely unnecessary nuclear project.”
The Eghtesad-e Pouya daily acknowledged on Monday that the country’s economic problems have ‘internal roots’ and that sanctions that have been placed on the regime are not the main cause of the problems. The sanctions have been placed on the regime purely for their continuing malign activities and can easily be removed if these activities cease. However, the regime’s existence is based on the foundations of funding terrorism and oppressing the Iranian people, therefore, the sanctions will remain firmly in place as there is no end in sight for stopping the illicit activities.
The NCRI said, “It is worth noting that while some officials and state media call for adopting the FATF Conventions, the regime cannot do that. These conventions prevent the regime from funding all terrorist entities, including the Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) and its Quds Force, which are both considered terrorist organizations.”
As the IRGC has control of Iran’s economy, acting as the regime’s ‘financial and military artery’, it is no surprise as to why Raisi is reluctant to resolve the domestic economic crisis. The majority of his cabinet is comprised of top IRGC generals and other corrupted officials affiliated with the regime’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei. Khamenei himself controls the wealth of the country, via the IRGC, along with other financial empires.
The NCRI said, “This is just the tip of the iceberg. The Iranian regime in its entirety is the real cause of Iran’s economic problems. Thus, as the state-run media acknowledged, the current situation continues as long as the regime is in power.”
Even many of the MP’s are admitting that the situation is becoming worse than imagined.
“With the official announcement of the Central Bank, the poverty line in 2021 is 11 million tomans, so many families, especially young people, workers, teachers, retirees, drivers, the military and a significant percentage of the nation are below the poverty line,” said Yousef Davoodi, a member of parliament from Sarab, in an inevitable confession on Monday. (ICANA, October 4, 2021)
But that is not all, of the total elderly population, 25% are poor, and 55% of the elderly do not receive a pension, this is what the state-run news agency ILNA admitted.
Then this agency gave one of the examples and wrote: “In one of the hallways of Tehran’s Entelab Square metro station, an elderly woman sits all the time, wearing a colorful cover and shabby clothes, begging passersby to buy packets of pocket paper towels or Hafez’s horoscope.
“Elderly street vendors are abundantly found everywhere, wherever we step up, we see men and women who are over 60-year-old, and because they have no source of income, pensions, and facilities, they sell humble things and demand a living from the people, even elderly begging has become a common phenomenon.”
