Tehran City Council Head: Ahmadinejad's Misconducts Amounted to 300 Billion Tomans

The head of the Tehran City Council reacted to reports about the extent of misconduct during Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's mayoralty, stating that these violations, contrary to the mayor's claims, amounted to 300 billion tomans. Mohsen Hashemi also mentioned the possibility of 'digging up' Ahmadinejad's misconducts during his tenure as mayor if the council members agree. On Wednesday, October 18, Economy Online quoted Mohsen Hashemi as stating that the amount of misconduct during Ahmadinejad's mayoralty was '300 billion tomans.' According to Hashemi, 'I think this amount was 300 billion tomans, not 32 billion.' He further expressed ignorance as to why this misconduct was reported as '270 billion tomans' less. Mohammad Ali Najafi, the mayor of Tehran, stated on September 25 that the Tehran municipality has debts exceeding 1.7 times the budget of the year 96, amounting to about 30 trillion tomans. Najafi described this debt as 'definite debt' of the municipality. In this context, mid-October, Mahmoud Mirloohi, a city council member, reported that Najafi announced the debts of this institution to be 52,500 billion tomans, of which 30,000 billion tomans is 'definite debt.' The current mayor of Tehran also mentioned on October 25 that 'we discovered 32 billion tomans of undocumented expenses from Ahmadinejad's performance between 2003 and 2005.' The Borna news agency on Tuesday, while referring to the amount of misconduct, also quoted the mayor of Tehran stating that former city council head Mehdi Chamran 'did not allow the issue to be raised in the third council.' On Wednesday, Mohsen Hashemi, the current head of the city council, also pointed out this issue and, in response to the question of whether it is possible for the council head to keep such misconduct hidden for six years, said: 'I have no information on this matter and do not know how he managed to do this for six years.' In August 2016, 'Shoura Online' reported Mehdi Chamran as saying: 'During Ahmadinejad's mayoralty, some claimed he had 300 billion tomans of undocumented expenses, and it is unclear what happened. If the expenses were undocumented, how was 300 billion calculated?!' Chamran has not yet reacted to Najafi and Hashemi's statements, but this indicates that he likely does not accept the existence of 300 billion tomans in debt. Since the end of his presidency, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has always been under suspicion of misconduct, particularly financial misconduct, and several officials of the Islamic Republic have stated that '700 billion dollars' of the country's assets were 'eaten and swallowed' during his presidency. In this context, the prosecutor of the Court of Audit announced in August this year that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has seven definitive and enforceable rulings in this court, five of which are related to oil. However, Ahmadinejad himself has described these reports as mere accusations and threatened that he will 'reveal' information. Reformists, who currently hold the Tehran municipality and city council, have criticized Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf's actions, believing that he created an unfavorable financial situation in this institution during his 12 years as mayor. Qalibaf, however, has denied all reports related to corruption in the municipality, stating that there has not been a single case of 'organized misconduct' in this institution.