Baku, Azerbaijan, Feb.16
By Fatih Karimov - Trend:
Akbar Torkan, an advisor to Iran's president, has said that a multibillion dollar financial fraud case will be disclosed in the near future. In an interview, which was published on February 15 in Arman newspaper, Torkan said implicitly that the fraud case has taken place during former president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's activity.
Torkan has expressed disappointment over the disruption of a corruption chain in the country, saying that the revealed 90-trillion-rial (€2.6 billion) financial fraud case is related to Babak Zanjani, the billionaire businessman, who is taken into custody for his debt to the Oil Ministry.
Torkan has not provided the details about the multibillion dollar fraud case, but has said "financial corruption is rooted in decisions of managers", and "administrative and structural corruption has become an element in the body of the government". Causes of corruption should be sought in using "unprincipled forces".
The advisor to the Iranian president has also said that the Supreme Audit Court has reported tens of billions of dollars in government's financial fraud cases during the past eight years.
However, he said "some persons involved in the fraud cases may be present in the current administration. It means that the sequence of corruption has not been disrupted with the administration's change."
Torkan, who is also the secretary of the coordination council of Iran's free zones, has revealed "organized rent seeking and corruption in free zones" under Ahmadinejad's administration. As for President Rouhani's order, we are gathering the information and sending it to the first vice president's office, Torkan said.
President Rouhani in a meeting with officials of the Intelligence Ministry on February 3 spoke about broad economic corruption in the country. The Transparency International in its latest annual report, which was published on December 3, 2013, ranked Iran 144 among 177 countries in terms of administrative corruption, showing 11 steps deterioration compared to its ranking in 2012.