TEHRAN – Following a mounting pressure over lavish executive salaries the board of trustees of Iran’s National Development Fund on Saturday accepted the resignation of the managing director and chief executives of the fund.

During a meeting between the National Development Fund’s board of trustees in which the president is also a member, records and documentaries related to payslips of the chief executives were studied and their decision to resign was accepted.

The board of trustees consists of the president, head of the Management and Planning Organization, economy, oil and labor ministers, central bank governor, head of the Chamber of Commerce, national prosecutor general, and representatives from the Majlis economic and budget committees. 

The fund also has a supervisory body which its members are the heads of the Supreme Auditing Court, Supreme Auditing Organization, and State Inspectorate Organization.

Seyed Safdar Hosseini, a former reformist minister who was handpicked by Rouhani to head the fund, was paid 580 million rials ($17,000) per month.

The news came just two days after Economy Minister Ali Tayebnia sacked the directors of four banks "for receiving unconventional salaries and loans".

The Management and Planning Organization is obligated to pursue the issue of cancelling the law which was enacted by the former government according to which the chief executives of the NDF were able to decide about the amount of salaries.

The presiding board also highlighted the importance of “preventing the directors from making decisions that benefit them”.

The participants at the meeting warned of any political and factional exploitation of the inflated salaries and called on the media to be careful in this respect.

On June 12, Rouhani wrote a letter to First Vice-President Es’haq Jahangiri tasking him to pursue the issue of extremely high salaries of some executives and fire the ones who had violated the law.

In a meeting with President Hassan Rouhani and his administration’s officials on June 29, Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei said, “The issue of astronomic salaries is, in fact, an infringement upon values, but everyone must know that this issue is one of exceptions and most administration’s directors are clean-handed people, but even this few number is still very inappropriate and must be dealt with.”

Referring to Rouhani’s letter to Jahangiri, the Leader said, “This issue must not be a matter of time. It must be seriously pursued and the public must be kept abreast of its result.”

NA/PA