Military

Bonyad-e Mostazafan va Janbazan
Oppressed and Disabled Veterans Foundation (MJF)

By mid-1980s, over a third of the Iranian economy was either directly controlled by the State or run by Religious Foundations setup in the aftermath of the 1979 Islamic Revolution. The most important of these was the Foundation of the Oppressed and War Veterans (Bonyad-e Mostazafan va Janbazan or MJF).

The MJF, was established in 1979. In 1989, responsibility for the management of the welfare of persons who had been disabled during the war with Iraq was entrusted to this foundation. The MJF was the biggest Holding Company in the Middle East and owners of an Industrial, Tourist and Transport Conglomerate. The workforce of Bonyad exceeds 200,000 employees and their annual budget ammounted to more than 10 percent of the Iranian govermental budget.

MJF was a powerful economic block consisting of six different organizations each holding several related groups of companies as subsidiaries. The organizations were namely: Civil Development and Housing, Recreation and Tourism, Industries and Mines, Agriculture, and Transportation" and Commerce. MJF and the affiliated organizations managed about 400 companies and factories. Within Iran, it was active in the most outstanding industrial and business sectors: Food and beverage, chemicals, cellulose items, metals, petrochemicals, construction materials, dams, lowers, civil development, farming, horticulture, animal husbandry, tourism, transpotation, five-star hotels, commercial services, financing, joint ventures, etc.

In July 1979, six months after the victory of the Revolution, 28 private banks that held 43.9 percent of the total assets of all the Iranian banks in their possession, were declared nationalized by the government. At the same time, all the carmaking, copper, steel and aluminum industries, as well as the assets of 51 capitalists and major industrialists and their next of kin were declared nationalized by the government. The government took possession of properties it nationalized whereas those confiscated by the Revolutionary Courts were put at the disposal of the MJF to be spent for upgrading the living standard of the people who had contributed to the downfall of the monarchical regime of Shah through their uprising. The foundation was later exempted from rules and regulations of general auditing. In 1982, the foundation possessed 203 manufacturing and industrial factories, 472 big agricultural fields, 101 major construction firms, 238 trade and services companies and 2,786 big plots of real estates.