NCRI – Millions of dollars have disappeared from the Iranian regime’s National Development Fund that had been allocated to Hassan Rouhani’s government for the purchase of medicine.
Iranian government institutions and state media cannot presently account for where the missing money has been spent, the state-run Fars News Agency acknowledged in a report.
Fars, which is associated with the Iranian regime’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), quoted an Iranian Member of Parliament on April 12 as saying that “pertinent agencies are obliged to shed light on this and they need to offer numbers and documents to the people as to where this money has gone and why it has not been spent for what it had been allocated for.”
Mojtaba Zolnour, the representative of Qom in the regime’s parliament, or Majlis, alluded to the role of the accounting bureau and various parliamentary committees including the Committee on Planning, Budget and Audits, and said: “Parliament should seriously follow this matter.”
Addressing the parliament on April 10, Ahmad Tavakkoli spoke on a resolution ratified by the regime’s Supreme National Security Council (SNSC) in the final days of the previous government that decided $2.5 billion would be loaned out to the incoming government from the National Development Fund for the import of raw materials, fertilizers and medicine, Fars reported.
As an example, Tavakkoli named one company that had acquired $50 million from this fund but had returned just $15 million. The remaining $35 million was apparently misappropriated for the purchase of real estate and loaned out to other companies.
This revelation raises concerns about the persistence of corruption at a time when the Rouhani government has promised economic improvements and a crackdown on the graft that was rampant during the administration of his predecessor, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. It also comes just after the regime’s parliament eliminated cash subsidies for 24 million people on April 12, thereby increasing pressure on a population the majority of which is living below the poverty line.
