[5] Technically religious charitable organizations, they have evolved into "giant private monopolies with no governmental oversight",[6] and are now described as channeling revenues to groups supporting the Islamic Republic,[7] while providing limited and inadequate charity to the poor.
[2] Exempt from taxes and benefiting from "huge subsidies from government," they have been called "bloated,"[2] and "a major weakness of Iran's economy,"[5] that siphons off production to the lucrative black market.
[9] After the 1979 Iranian revolution, the bonyads were nationalized and renamed with the declared intention of redistributing income to the poor and families of martyrs, i.e. those killed in the service of the country.
[10] As charity organizations they are supposed to provide social services to the poor and the needy; however, bonyads do not fall under Iran's General Accounting Law and, consequently, are not subject to financial audits.
Lack of proper oversight and control of these foundations has also hampered the government's efforts in creating a comprehensive, central and unified social security system in the country, undertaken since 2003.
[citation needed] Rather than charitable organizations, the bonyads have been described as "patronage-oriented holding companies that ensure the channeling of revenues to groups and milieus supporting the regime," but don't help the poor as a class.
[7] Another complaint describes them as having kept to their charitable mission for the first decade of the Islamic Republic, but having "increasingly forsaken their social welfare functions for straightforward commercial activities" since the death of the revolution's founder Ruhollah Khomeini.