New Establishment to Help Fight Economic Crimes

EghtesadOnline: The Iranian Parliament is going to ratify a new bill to set up a new establishment against economic corruption and crimes.

News ID: ۷۸۳۶۰۰

08 August 2018

“A new establishment will be soon set up to counter economic corruption under the supervision of the judiciary branch,” said Iranian MP Yahya Kamalipour, from the constituency of Jiroft.

The Iranian lawmaker made the remarks on Monday in an interview with Fars News Agency, referring to recent turbulent developments in Iranian gold and foreign currency markets.

The legislator noted that all efforts to fight economic corruption will be unified through the new establishment proposed in a recent bill and approved by Majlis Judicial and Legal Commission to counter economic crimes and corruption, Financial Tribune reported.

“Some 40 articles of this bill had been prepared in the past and the rest of the bill was completed in the last couple of days. We finalized the bill to be tabled in the parliament in a meeting with the parliament speaker, after examining new suggestions and revisions recommended by the relevant committee,” he said.

Last month, Minister of Industries, Mining and Trade Mohammad Shariatmadari appointed his commercial affairs deputy, Hassan Younes Sinaki, the head of Consumers and Producers Protection Organization, Mahmoud Navvabi, and the head of ‘Tazirat’ Organization (a judiciary-affiliated disciplinary entity dealing with trading offenses), Jamal Ansari, as members of the newly-founded taskforce called “Intensified Fight Against Hoarding and Stashing”.

According to Shariatmadari, the taskforce is working to maintain market balance by supervising over imported commodities or ones produced using imported raw materials that have been purchased using subsidized foreign exchange rates, and preventing disruptive activities in the market, such as hoarding and stashing, IRNA reported.

The minister called on everyone, including the abovementioned bodies, public organizations, all producers’ unions and associations, and businesspeople to help achieve the objectives.

Later, the minister unveiled the list of products included in the “intensified fight” drive in a letter to the heads of Tazirat Organization, and Consumers and Producers Protection Organization.

The list includes a wide range of products, including wheat, barley, rice, field corn, soy meal, pulses, oilseeds, vegetable oil, sugar, butter, red meat, chicken, eggs, milk powder, home appliances, freezers, washing machines and TVs, spare parts, rubber, print paper, washing powder and construction material.

Also among the items is a category titled ‘production raw materials’, without further details.

Iran’s market has been going through a rough patch, as the value of rial fell to an unprecedented low over a very short period of time following, among other reasons, the US decision to back out of the nuclear agreement between Iran and world powers, and reimpose sanctions on Iran’s economy.

The US sanctions snapback took effect on Monday.