Iranian economists blame president for economic woes despite huge oil revenues

Iran’s state-run television said Saturday the government would soon respond in writing to scathing critics made by leading Iranian economists who blamed President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for the country’s growing economic woes.

A panel representing 57 economists made its plea for Ahmadinejad to change economic policies during a five and a half hour meeting with the hard-line president on Thursday.
In a letter read in public during the meeting, the economists told the president his government was ignoring academic findings, wasting huge oil revenues, and enforcing policies that have provoked greater inflation and worsening economic conditions.

Ahmadinejad was elected on a populist agenda in 2005, promising to bring oil revenues to every family, eradicate poverty and tackle unemployment. His failure to keep those promises has provoked increasingly fierce criticism from both conservatives and reformists.

“Economic policies in Your Excellency’s government are adopted irrespective of academic support,” the economists told Ahmadinejad. “Excessive spending from oil revenues … won’t bring economic growth, but causes stagnation in the private sector, makes the size of the government bigger and causes greater inflation,” they said.

International Herald Tribune