The coup d’état government in Iran, ostensibly headed by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad but in reality led by the corrupt Revolutionary Guards (IRGC), has been issuing a series of Eurobonds on the foreign exchange markets. These bonds have been issued on the promise of a guaranteed future value with a high rate of return guaranteed!

There is NO money left in Iran’s depleted coffers to make good the promises to pay out on these undertakings. There is currently a pressing deficit of 10 billion USD – the sector is at risk of going under and, with it the entire economy of the Country!

The Eurobonds have been issued supposedly to raise money to support Iran’s energy sector (which has been ravaged for years by the corrupt regime). However, the IRGC has corruptly used the funds raised. The money has not been invested into the energy sectors as promised. Rather, it has been diverted by the IRGC away from these projects towards further funding Iran’s nuclear missile plans!

There are further worries about corruption – monies seemingly disappearing into a “black hole” (no pun intended!) and who is buying these bonds to name but two!

The concerns in detail:

1. Why,      with 350 billion dollars of oil revenue in the last 5 years, isn’t there      enough foreign currency to finance the investment needed in the oil and      gas sectors without the need to go to the Eurobond markets – unless      the corrupt Regime knows – and we feel sure they do – that the money is      gone!
   
   
2. The      productivity of the projects in these sectors which have been awarded to      the IRGC is some 45-50% below the average for other OPEC countries? Is      this just mismanagement or are there other forces at work here?

3. What      had happened to 5 billion USD the IRGC has taken out of the emergency oil      reserves to invest in Pars 2 and Bijan projects (oil and gas) when      parliament’s accounts show only 0.9 billion has been used?
   
   
4. Why      hasn’t the regime put an upper limit on the amount of shares entities can      purchase given the strategic role of these sectors in the economy? In      other countries, a 5% limit per entity has been the norm. Early indicators      are that Chinese and UAE banks are getting ready to purchase a substantial      amount of the shares which will give them political influence in the      sector and over the Iranian economy?
   
   
5. Who      will oversee the costing of the revenues from the sale of bonds given the      endemic scale of corruption?

On 10 March 2010, Mr Mehrdad Emadi, a UK-based Economic Adviser to the European Union appeared on BBC Persian’s News Hour on related issues. This programme can be viewed here:       http://www.bbc.co.uk/persian/tv/2008/12/000001_ptv_newshour.shtml

An English translation of the Farsi interview follows:

Pre-election debates regarding corruption in the country

Karroubi: They wanted to give $700 million to some guy out of state treasury

Ahmadinejad: what are Rafsanjani's sons doing in this country?

Mousavi: Tens of millions of dollar are being exchanged in the country inside interior ministry

Ahmadinejad: There was a no-bid process at Rasht Electric where they gave a contract to Mr. Karbasi's friends

Mousavi: They say the money was lost and was never deposited into the treasury

Ahmadinejad: How did Nategh Nouri's son become a billionaire? what is Mr. Nategh himself living on?

People used to eat up these words and the words would spread across the country before morning. These accusastions
can consume Iran's judiciary for years. Experts say in Iran's economic terrain there is ample room for corruption
and under such conditions, the thieves go in one direction and those who are stolen from follow a thousand other directions. And this cycle continues.

Large loans with low interests, backdoor dealings, cash handouts, apportionment of merchandise, interference by the power structure
organizations into economic institutions! they say things like that will infest even the best of trees with termites! Farzad Hosseinzadeh, BBC

Presenter: Mr. Mehrdad Emadi, the European Parliament Economic Advisor is here with us. Welcome! we know that
you have been researching corruption. Why do you think that despite the Iranian government and the Iranian Parliament and the Judiciary's agreement that they need to confront corruption, this problem is still a major problem in the country?

Mehrdad Emadi: Yes and unfortunately, not only it has remained as a major issue in the country, it has turned into a bigger crisis, both in terms of the depth of corruption and it's extent. The main reason is that when we want to fight corruption in a system, we need to look to see whether the corruption is caused by corrupt management or corrupt managers! if it's only the managers
who are corrupt but the management system is not corrupt, like we had here in the banking system of Great Britain, the system filters itself out automatically through legal means and through close reviews. Also if the managers are clean but they inherit a corrupt management system, they can gradually change the management system from the ground up. But unfortunately in Iran we have both. We have corrupt managers and at the same time we have a management system that is very fertile to corruption. In fact the system encourages corruption.

Presenter: Well you have done some research regarding corruption in European societies and and also with regards to countries that somehow have an economic and financial relationships with the European Union. Where does Iran stand in this regard?

Mehrdad Emadi: Yes, we started this project to clean up foreign trade from corruption in the European Union in 1993,
both within the European Union and also with countries that have major financial trade with the Union. Not that there was no economic management corruption in Iran in the past, but Unfortunately during the in the past five years this corruption has grown much deeper. If we take a look at the graphs, five years ago Iran ranked 119 in terms of bureaucratic corruption, sitting somewhere in the middle of the table. There were about 80 countries who were worse than us and there were about 118 countries that were cleaner than us in terms of corruption. Only three years later, in 2008 Iran reached the corruption level ranking of 141st. This means that there were about 140 other countries that are cleaner than us and only 38 countries were worse than us. A year later we have fallen from 141st to 168th. Thus we have turned into the ninth worst corrupt country in the world! This is very worrisome! how did we fall from 141st to 168th in just one year?

Presenter: Why did this happen?

Mehrdad Emadi: The major reason is that Iran's foreign trade has been concentrated in the hands of organizations that have no monitors: organizations associated with the Revolutionary Guards and organizations associated with state foundations! The contracts they have been signing and the kickbacks they have been getting from these contracts are completely out of the realm of norms and rules of international foreign trade!
The second problem is that the government itself now has a bigger hand in foreign trade and the private sector has almost entirely been taken over by the government.

Presenter: Well there have been changes in the beauracratic system of the country in the past few years and we cannot discount their effects. What decisions and what policies do you think have caused Iran's ranking to drop by almost 50 positions as reported by international organizations?

Mehrdad Emadi: For one thing the changes in handing out subsidies and direct distribution of subsidies will increase corruption further.
That's because those who implement these changes have great financial power to choose or not to choose the recepients. What we have seen in the past 4 years regarding the changes in economic management system of Iran is that a system that used to have at least a little bit of supervision by the treasury department, has
turned into a system that nobody knows what the government is doing with the oil revenues. Really nobody knows! Whenever questions are rasied, they bring up national security as an excuse! This is a very weak and childish response coming from a government that needs transparency more than any other government in the past 31 years in order to convince people that they are the true owners and government officials are only their representatives managing the country's affairs. It's quite the opposite. The government officials believe that they are the true owners and the people can eat off of what's trickled down from the oil revenue.

Presenter: To summarize quickly Mr. Emadi, what can be done to improve the situation?

Mehrdad Emadi: The only thing we can do is to follow the model used by Turkey or Malaysia and Singapore. We need financial transparency. All managers and ministers' financial dealings have to be monitored. It has to be an effective 365 days a year monitoring.