With the start of the wave of privatization in 2007, the government was tasked with distributing the shares of 60 governmental companies among low-income households which today comprise some 50 million people. These shares were named “Justice Shares”. Ebtekar Newspaper writes that since no operational tool existed for determining these people, job brackets became the basis of these selections. Therefore, government employees, members of the armed forces, villagers and nomads and Relief Committee custodians were included to receive Justice Shares bringing the total number of recipients to 49 million people.
The price of each share was set as 10 million IRR (then 1083 USD) and the decision was made to keep the dividends from the shares of these 60 companies at the Privatization Organization as installments for the shares; after this period shareholders were to receive the shares and their annual dividends. In these ten years, 240 thousand billion IRR in dividend was accumulated; three quarters of which were realized in the 11th Government (President Rouhani) and a quarter in the 9th and 10th Governments (President Ahmadinejad). Now, the government has set out to pay the dividends from the Justice Shares which have been set as 1.5 million IRR per share in the 1395 fiscal year (March 2016 – March 2017). The current value of each Justice Share is currently estimated at 24 million IRR (656 USD).
