Member of Parliament: National and Provincial Officials Involved in Land Grabs

Ezzatollah Yusefian Molla, a member of the Parliament's Economic Corruption Combat Headquarters, stated that "national and provincial officials" are involved in land grabs, and that banks in Iran have become a "breeding ground for corruption" with "corruption having lost its stigma in the country." He made these remarks in an interview published on Tuesday, February 1, and added that "no financial or economic corruption has occurred that did not pass through the banks." He claimed that banks in Iran are "corruption-generating" and that "corruption is the only thing that has brought the country to an irreparable disaster." Two days prior, he announced that "60 to 80 percent of the country's large loans are held by 400 individuals or entities" and that "the amount of overdue loans reaches about 80 to 100 trillion tomans." On December 20, he stated in a parliamentary speech that "there is no serious will to combat corruption in our country, and as long as this is the case, the establishment of organizations will not change the situation." Some parliament members say that corruption in the Islamic Republic of Iran has become "systematic" and that oversight institutions have also been affected. The latest report from the Parliament Research Center, recently published, indicates that members of 271 economic organizations in Iran believe that the index of economic corruption in government agencies has increased over the past two years. This report, like some other official reports and expert opinions, identifies banks as the main "corrupt" institution in Iran. The results of the latest survey by the "iPaz" institute, published on January 20, confirm that, in the eyes of the Iranian people, "corruption" has "expanded" in the country and that banks are the "most corrupt" institutions in the Islamic Republic. In addition to banks, some religious institutions such as the Organization of Endowments and Charity Affairs, Astan Quds Razavi, and various government organizations have also been involved in corruption, with numerous reports of their "land grabs" published in recent years. Yusefian Molla also stated that of the 3 million and 330 thousand hectares of natural resources land allocated by the government in the 1990s, less than one million hectares have been used for industrial parks, hospitals, and universities, while the rest has been used for "villa construction" and "personal matters." This parliament member explicitly stated that "the footprints of national and provincial officials can be seen in land grabs" and that "it is regrettable that we are witnessing the expansion of corruption, embezzlement, bribery, and unlawful appropriation of state property." Transparency International in Germany stated in its latest report on the level of corruption in 2015 that despite Iran's six-rank improvement, the country's score has not changed compared to the previous year; Iran ranks 130 out of 168 countries worldwide. In this context, Transparency International: Iran ranks 130 in corruption; Parliament Research Center: Economic corruption in government agencies has increased; 60 employees arrested on charges of "land grabbing."