Iranian Politician Warns About Multiple Corruption Cases

While the Iranian government's response to reports about a large embezzlement of public funds has been mostly dismissive, the media continue to discuss its implications.

Centrist Aftab News website in Tehran wrote in a commentary on Monday that the money in question, which could be more than $3 billion, is 15 times more than the funds needed to implement the long-awaited pension adjustment to make life easier for retirees. An annual inflation rate of around 50 percent has impoverished retirees and wage earners.

The website also argued that the amount was enough for establishing up to nine major petrochemical plants.

However, calculations like that will be meaningful only if one could assume that the embezzled money was going to be spent in the interest of the public and was not going to be spent on the wars in the region.

A retired government employee told Aftab News that if the money was allocated to pensioners, not only they would climb out of poverty, but the government’s bankrupt Pension Fund could also reach a surplus to spend on the retiree healthcare.

One of the recurrent slogans chanted by unpaid pensioners during their recurrent protests is: "Our problems will be solved if there was only one less embezzlement case."

Massoud Pezeshkian, a lawmaker from Tabriz told reporters, "The underlying reason for all these corruption, land grabbing and bribery cases is that Iran does not have a transparent data system. Unless we have such a system, everyone will point fingers at others and the problem will remain unsolved.

Meanwhile, other reports about the case have unearthed a letter that the managing director of the implicated Debsh Tea Company, Akbar Rahimi, wrote to President Ebrahim Raisi more than a month before the scandal became news.

The publication of the letter by the press on Monday revealed that the Raisi Administration showed no tangible reaction to the revelation. In the letter, the company's head had warned that it might have to stop all of its activities within a few days and that all of more than 6,000 of its employees might lose their jobs.

In the letter, Rahimi spoke about limitations imposed on the activities of the company. He possibly meant that the Judiciary had started investigations about the company. Rahimi named the Intelligence office of Karaj, the capital of Alborz Province near Tehran as one of the offices that created problems for the tea company. He further complained that the limitations were imposed on the company's activity without any prior notice.

In another development, Expediency Council member Ahmad Tavakoli wrote in a letter to President Raisi that there is possibly another corruption case under way as the government has given a concession to a hitherto unknown company to import 13 million tons of essential commodities under strict secrecy and without meeting legal formalities. 

Tavakoli said that giving such a big concession to a new company is unprecedented. He added that the profit of the importing operation is supposed to be divided on a fifty-fifty basis between the company and those who granted the concession to it.

The politician added that the company is supposed to import 13 million tons of essential commodities, including as rice, meat, and poultry feed while it has never imported even one ton of such goods. These are goods that the slightest irregularity or delay in their import could cause havoc in the country.

Tavakoli further warned that the confidential nature of the concession makes this deal dangerously non-transparent. He revealed that in May 2022, the Minister of Agriculture ordered the Central bank to pay 735 million euros (around $800m) to a foreign company before any goods arrived in Iran.

The consecutive revelations of corruption cases not only badly damages the image of hardliners running the government, but it also reflects badly on Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, who has been ruling Iran for 34 years.