September 06-13
The Rohani Administration will re-establish the old planning organization that was the most prestigious agency in the Iranian state until it was abolished by President Ahmadi-nejad, presumably to put more authority inside the president’s office.
The Planning and Budget Organization (PBO) was established by the Shah in the 1950s as the main vehicle for economic development and for modernizing the way the government was run.
It quickly attracted some of the best minds in the country as returning graduates of foreign universities found it provided much opportunity to use their skills with fewer of the bureaucratic impediments for which the Iranian government had long been infamous.
The PBO continued as a prestigious and powerful organization after the revolution. Its name was eventually changed to the Management and Planning Organization (MPO).
But in July 2007, in a move that drew much criticism, Ahmadi-nejad abolished the MPO. Some of its duties were passed down to provincial governments, such as the oversight of development projects, while other powers such as planning and budget development were centralized within the president’s office.
During the campaign, candidate Hassan Rohani criticized the elimination of the MPO and pledged to restore it. Last week, Deputy President Mohammad-Baqer Nobakht said re-establishing the MPO is one of the priorities on Rohani’s to-do list and will be accomplished within his first 100 days in office.
Nobakht said, “Unfortunately, the dissolution of the MPO disrupted the government’s budgeting and human resources functions.”
On Saturday, Rohani said a working group was being set up by the cabinet to produce the first stage of an economic plan by September 7.
Rohani said the working group would prepare a list “of all the existing obstacles in the way of a flourishing economy, job creation, the establishment of large and small enterprises, economic dynamism in industry, agriculture and public service, and reinvigorating the private sector.”