Tehranis balking at order to move out to provinces

Iran Times International July 30, 2010:The Ahmadi-nejad Admin- istration is redoubling its efforts to cut the population of the capital in half, but is now facing organized opposition from the first state employees ordered to the provinces. The Administration pushed back last week by telling every state agency it had to have some employees into new offices in the provinces no later than August 22, giving them just four weeks. Dozens of employees of the state-run Cultural Heritage and Tourism Organization (CHTO) gathered outside the Majlis last Monday and Tuesday to make their opposition known. Only 150 employees have told they must move this summer to such cities as Esfahan and Shiraz, but another 1,100 have been told they will be moved later, according to published reports. Hamid Baqai, head of the CHTO, said no one was being forced to transfer out of Tehran. “There is no compulsion for employees to transfer,” he was quoted as saying the Fars news agency. “Anyone may volunteer, or refuse.” But the demonstrating employees obviously had a different view. Baqai said he was encouraging volunteers by offering pay raises, half-price airfares, housing loans and other incentives to those who agree to move. He did not say what would happen to those who declined to move. The government started by asking for volunteers. Lotfollah Foruzandeh, the vide president for development, told a news conference last week that 15,000 civil servants had so far volunteered—a drop in the bucket considering that President Ahmadi-nejad has spoken of cutting Tehran’s metropolitan population by “at least 5 million” from its current 12 million to 14 million. Foruzandeh said that 106 state-owned firms have been ordered to move out of Tehran lock, stock and barrel. Most of them are owned by the Oil Ministry and the Industries Ministry. A survey earlier this month by one newspaper, however, found that the agencies it had contacted had done nothing concrete, were only speaking vaguely of transfers and had given no deadlines at all. That appears to have stiffened Ahmadi-nejad’s resolve. After the protests outside the Majlis, the cabinet discussed the issue last Wednesday and issued a decree ordering every agency to have its first batch of employees moved into new offices in the provinces no later than August 22. The cabinet announcement said that every part of the executive branch must move at least 40 percent of its affiliated offices outside the capital by then. It didn’t make clear if 40 percent of the staff was to be moved by then—an impossibility—or if 40 percent of the offices were to be set up in the provinces by then. Even that was seen as impossible by many. But Ahmadi-nejad seemed determined to fight a tendency by state agencies to drag their feet in hopes that the campaign to thin out Tehran would fade, stall and die like so many other government campaigns. Ahmadi-nejad has said he wants to move millions of people out of Tehran because an earthquake in the capital could kill millions. The Tehran area has not suffered a major quake since 1830, when it was little more than a village. Historically, the region suffers a major quake every 150 years, so Tehran is, by that definition, overdue. But critics say it would be cheaper and less disruptive if Tehran simply quakeproofed its building stock and enforced the already-existing building code. A few months ago, the Expediency Council approved a goal of moving the entire national government to a new capital city by 2025. But it chose no location. Ahmadi-nejad has not spoken about moving the capital, just thinning the population by moving state agencies and employers to other cities all around the country. Critics note that most of Iran is earthquake-prone, so moving residents form one fault line to another is not a prescription for safety absent strict enforcement of a strict building code, something Japan has done very successfully. The opposition in Tehran—and some not in the opposition—think they see a political agenda behind the thinning out of Tehran. They believe the president views the capital as a bastion of the opposition and sees the reduction of the capital as the reduction of the opposition. But other analysts doubt that. They say the opposition in the capital city is centered on college campuses, not in government agencies. They suggest Ahmadi-nejad will only make new enemies for himself with a program of forced migration. To them, Ahmadi-nejad’s moving policy is just another example of governance by whim, lacking a base in rational thought and analysis.

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