As a result, the general policies of Article 44 of the Constitution were declared by the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei in 2005 and 2006.
Following the declaration, a law concerning the implementation of general policies of Article 44 of the Constitution was ratified by the Iranian parliament in 2008. However, after 11 years of implementation of the law, not only the main goals of general policies have not been achieved, studying indicators related to the role of government in economy shows that the government's contribution to ownership and control of enterprises has grown more than ever prominently.
For instance, the ratio of state-owned enterprises to the general budget of the government has increased from 2 in 2008 to 3 in 2009.
Additionally, only about 13% of the divestitures were allocated to the private sector. Nevertheless, in the eyes of public opinion, the privatization process has been a phenomenon, which has been sometimes described as a reprehensible factor in closure of enterprises and unemployment of the labor force.
The failure did not have its roots in the erroneous principle of privatization, but because of lack of a clear privatization prototype for governance in the country.
In the existing governance model, slight attention has been heeded to the pre- and post-requirements of privatization.
Besides, the privatization process has had numerous legal problems and main players active in implementing privatization, including private sector and executive bodies, do not even have capabilities to carry out the current process.
Moreover, the system of monitoring feedbacks and post-privatization checks and balances is suffering from many shortcomings.
A look into successful experiences of privatization in the world as well as the experience of successful and unsuccessful cases of privatization in Iran will help prepare short-term and medium-term reforms to promote processing modifications.