July 22, 2016
So far, 13 government officials have resigned or been fired over excessive pay they have drawn from state-owned corporations, cabinet spokesman Mohammad-Baqer Nobakht announced last Tuesday.
“Resignations of some of those officials have been approved with some others laid off by the government,” Nobakht said. “So far, the number has reached 13.”
He did not identify them by either name or position.
The pay scandal is by far the worst scandal ever faced by the Rohani Administration. And hardliners are doing their best to fan the flames and keep the scandal before the public in an obvious bid to cripple the president before the next presidential election, just 11 months away.
But many members of the public appear not to blame Rohani—or even the Islamic Republic. They see a cultural problem that has afflicted Iran for centuries—one that was inherited by the Islamic Republic from the Pahlavi Dynasty and inherited by the Pahlavi Dynasty from the Qajar Dynasty and so on and on.
Among those implicated in the scandal are the brother of Vice President Es’haq Jahangiri; dozens of top managers working in health care, energy, insurance and banking; and others who are paid from state coffers. Jahangiri and the president’s brother, Hossain Fereydun, stand accused of nepotism and cronyism for placing relatives and friends in top executive positions.
The disclosures first emerged in conservative news outlets that oppose the president, and have since mushroomed beyond his inner circle to managers and executives from all political factions.
It all started in May, when Mizan, the news agency belonging to Iran’s Judiciary, published the payment slips of eight managers of the state-owned Central Insurance Company, who had each received yearly bonuses of over $50,000.
The chief executive of the company, Mohammad Ebrahim Amin, resigned immediately.
In June, a hardline website, Ensafnews, published the paycheck stubs of the top managers of the state-owned Tejarat Bank. Its chief executive, appointed after Rohani was elected in 2013, made $208,115 over 21 months, the documents showed. He had also been given an interest-free loan of $289,000.
Since then, the wages of doctors, auto executives and others have been disclosed in the news media, as hardline and moderate publications have competed to see which can more severely embarrass the other.
Managers in health care appear to top the charts with monthly wages for some exceeding $200,000.
Government salaries are capped, but not those in state-owned enterprises.
Some Reformists have accused generals in the Pasdaran of receiving excessive pay. Rather than announcing its pay scales, however, a spokesman for the Pasdaran said officer salaries are “state secrets”—an announcement not likely to instill faith.
Saeed Laylaz, an economist close to the Rohani Administration, said,—“What is emerging is a mechanism similar to that in the former Soviet Union. The elites are rewarded with money and privileges in return for their loyalties.”