Iranian chief auditor Adel Azar addressed parliament on Tuesday after clashing with the Iranian cabinet over a report claiming that $4.8 billion in subsidies was not spent for its intended purposes.

Iran desperately needs cash to deal with the coronavirus crisis, and has asked the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for a $5 billion emergency loan. But the country’s Supreme Auditing Court found that $4.8 billion already allocated for importing goods has not been spent.

President Hassan Rouhani hit back against the report last week, calling the report “inaccurate.” He asked why the court had only audited the civilian government—implying that the audit was a political move aimed at himself.

Azar, who runs the auditing court, defended his work before the Iranian parliament’s Budget Committee.

“All members of the [Budget] Committee supported the work of the Auditing Court,” he told the state-affiliated Young Journalists Club after the session. “The Committee ordered the Public Accounting Subcommittee to coordinate with the Budgeting and Programming Organization and the national Auditing Court, which is responsible for budget discrepancies, to investigate all cases.”

He announced that all the relevant agencies will submit their documents within two weeks, allowing the Budget Committee to come up with a final determination.

Iran had previously dealt with subsidized currency vanishing, albeit on a smaller scale. The Rouhani administration demanded explanations from government ministries in July 2019 after €1 billion “disappeared.”

Iran had allocated $31 billion in subsidies for low-cost importers this year. Selected importers were allowed to buy U.S. dollars from the country’s foreign currency reserves at about a third of the official exchange rate, meaning that their Iranian rial could buy about three times as much in foreign goods.

But the Supreme Auditing Court found that only $26.2 billion in goods had been imported, leaving behind a $4.8 billion shortfall. The report said that 275 individuals who had received import subsidies did not import anything.

Rouhani’s office shot back in a statement claiming that the report was outdated, because it relied on data from December.

The statement said that some of the subsidized goods had been “delayed due to sanctions or other factors abroad, or was in the process of production and importation.”

U.S. lawmakers have accused the Trump administration’s economic sanctions campaign against Iran of preventing imports of vital goods, including goods that are ostensibly exempt under U.S. law.

Rouhani’s statement also implied that some of the money had in fact been stolen.

“A section related to violations has also been introduced to the judiciary,” the President’s office wrote. “A number of violators are in custody awaiting trial and sentencing.”

Matthew Petti is a national security reporter at the National Interest. Follow him on Twitter: @matthew_petti.