In a Meeting of Provincial Directors of Culture & Islamic Guidance Ministry
Ali Moradkhani: Cooperate With Private Sector
Ali Moradkhani, deputy culture and Islamic guidance minister for art affairs, said at the 3rd national gathering of directors of the ministry in provinces that the departments should pave the ground for cooperation with the private sector to help them shoulder the burden of the government.
Mr Moradkhani, in a question & answer session which was reported by semi-official Fars news agency, said that his office was covering a wide variety of fields including music, theater, visual arts of them all had their own challenges and activities.
Mr Moradkhani explained that his office, which was facing financial restrictions, was pushing for removing the difficulties, irantheater.ir reported.
“We have managed to increase the budget by 46bn tomans ($14.6m) in the Iranian year to March 2015 while the budget for previous years was 18bn tomans ($5.8m),” he said.
Mr Moradkhani urged the directors of provinces to start cooperating with the private sector to help ease burden of the government as the culture ministry could only have a supportive role.
He criticized the departments for an inclination to run small programs such as holding concerts and festivals themselves while the ministry should have a supportive role and take responsibility for major works.
Referring to 230bn rials sale of Tehran auction, Moradkhani said that similar events should be held in provinces to help include art a part and parcel of the Iranian families’ lives.
Stressing that 20 per cent of the budget of his office were allocated to provinces, Moradkhani said that the amount could increase if any department work good in its province.