Dalga Khatinoglu, Trend Iran News Service Chief
Iranian president's famous slang words during the presidential elections in 2005 were fighting against monopoly, corruption and putting petrodollars on people's tables.
He claimed as having a list of "a major corruption list" in his pocket and has repeated this claim several times so far without revealing any report or submitting the list to the Judiciary System.
Now, after seven and a half years under his two term presidency, Ahmadinejad said during a live interview on state TV on Dec.22, that 60 per cent of the country's financial assets are in the hands of 300 people, who got a huge amount in loans from banks and deny paying off their debts because they enjoy "hidden hands of support".
Now, Iran's Prosecutor General Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei said on Tuesday that the Judiciary System has three times requested from Ahmadinejad the list of those who have above 10 billion rials in value delayed loads to the banks, but Ahmadinejad hasn't replied so yet.
The USD official rate in Iran is 12 260 rials. Ahmadinejad rejected Ejei's statement on Wednesday, saying 'I have never got any request'.
According to the Central Bank of Iran (CBI), whose head is elected directly by the president, the amount of bad loans amount prior to 2005 was 75 trillion rials ($6.1 billion), while this figure has reached 700 trillion rials (some $57 billion) according to the Centre for Combating Economic Corruption's latest report, an entity under the president's administration.
In the other words the amount of bad loans amount has increased above nine fold during Ahmadinejad's presidency. Half the amount of bad loans belongs to large state companies and legal people, whilst the average people share 300 trillion rials of the amount of bad loans. Ahmadinejad's focus is now on the second group.
It is not clear how Ahmadinejad wants to publish the list of top bank debtors, while during his presidency the bad loans amount have increased nine fold and taking into account the fact the CBI president was elected directly by him.