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Tehran city council warns mayor about municipality directors with military roots

Iran Materials 8 February 2014 12:35 (UTC +04:00)
The Council of the Iranian capital city, Tehran has warned the mayor, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf about municipality directors with military roots, deputy head of the Council, Ahmad Hakimi Pour said.
Tehran city council warns mayor about municipality directors with military roots

Baku, Azerbaijan, Feb. 8

By Umid Niayesh, Saeed Isayev - Trend:

The Council of the Iranian capital city, Tehran has warned the mayor, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf about municipality directors with military roots, deputy head of the Council, Ahmad Hakimi Pour said, Iranian Salameno news portal reported on Feb. 8.

Hakimi Pour went on to add that about 600 directors of Tehran municipality have military backgrounds, either as retired police or military commanders.

The City council has previously warned the Mayor about the issue.

"Their speciality is not related to municipality," Hakimi Pour said of the mentioned directors. "The mayor promised that the mentioned directors will leave the municipality by the end of October, 2013, but he did not keep his word."

Ghalibaf, himself has military background, as the conservative politician earlier has served as head of the Khatam al-Anbia Construction Headquarters and commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps Air Force. He was chief of Iran's police from 1999 to 2005.

Earlier in September, Iranian media outlets reported that semi-military companies have participated in construction projects in the Tehran municipality.

Tehran's municipality needs liquidity for its constructional projects and these companies can provide it due to their powerful bank system, Iran's Shargh newspaper quoted reformist politician, Mohsen Hashemi.

He also said that, some of the current directors in Tehran municipality have military backgrounds, adding that, these people have been using their military connections in participating of various municipality projects.

Iran's major economic entity, the Khatam al-Anbia construction firm, belongs to IRGC, which won hundreds of lucrative government contracts, including more than $25 billion worth of oil contracts (until June 2011).

Khatam al-Anbia has also billions worth of contracts in construction, telecommunication, power generation, pipeline construction, gas and banking sectors.

Iranian experts and some officials have criticized the military for entering Iran's economy.

Some $6 billion (based on official rate of 24,863 rials per each USD) of the country's budget for the next solar year (will start on March 21, 2014) have been allocated to the Tehran municipality, which indicates an increase by 9 percent compared to the last year.

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