Former Official Accuses Rouhani's Government of 'Manipulating' Smuggling Statistics

The former head of Iran's Anti-Smuggling Headquarters accused Hassan Rouhani's government of 'manipulating smuggling statistics' and lacking the will to combat smuggling in the country. Fada Hossein Maleki, in an interview with Nasim Online news agency on Tuesday, September 23, called on officials of the eleventh government to explain 'how they managed to reduce smuggled goods by ten billion dollars?' This request was made in response to statements by Ali Taebnia, the Minister of Economic Affairs and Finance, regarding the reduction of smuggling from 25 billion dollars to 15 billion dollars. On July 7 of this year, Qasem Khoshidi, the current spokesperson for the Anti-Smuggling Headquarters, also spoke about a ten billion dollar reduction in smuggling from 2013 to 2015. Maleki stated that the figure of 25 billion dollars in smuggling is based on 'guesswork' and claimed that this figure has never been officially confirmed. He alleged that some officials, after the Supreme Leader expressed concern about the smuggling trend, 'wanted to show they were making efforts by reducing the smuggling statistics.' The former customs official also questioned the eleventh government's officials, asking 'why do people not feel the ten billion reduction in smuggling statistics and how could ten billion be reduced in a few months?' Maleki added that 'accepting the government's claim about the ten billion dollar reduction in smuggling statistics is difficult because they must prove this issue based on data and documentation.' He also stated that 'the government lacks the determination to combat smuggling and does not even prevent imports that harm domestic production,' and 'some of Rouhani's ministers did not want the anti-smuggling law to be implemented.' In this context, the Tasnim news agency reported on Tuesday that the Research Center of the Parliament, in its recent report, questioned the statistics provided by the Statistical Center, declaring the economic growth of the previous year as negative. According to this news agency, the Research Center of the Parliament reported a negative economic growth of 0.4 percent for Iran in the year 1394 (2015). As reported, the Statistical Center of Iran had announced earlier this year that the economic growth for the year 1394 was one percent with oil and 0.9 percent without it. Simultaneously with the publication of these news and reports regarding what is called 'unreal statistics' from the eleventh government, Ali Khamenei also stated in a meeting with the officials of the General Census Headquarters that 'manipulating statistics, which is subject to the judgment of the discerning public, is a grave sin.' Khamenei added that 'unfortunately, the country is lagging behind in statistics, and even some officials are unaware of the realities and actual statistics in certain areas.' Conservative critics of Hassan Rouhani's government have repeatedly rejected some of the statistics announced by the government over the past two years and have directly and indirectly accused government officials of 'manipulating and announcing unreal statistics.'