Tehran accuses the US of sanctions, but if there is a lack of medicines, it is the fault of the regime’s endemic corruption
For months now the Iranian regime has used as a slogan to attack the United States for the new sanctions that Washington has launched against the Islamic Republic, the accusation of having caused the lack of food and medicines in Iran. The accusations came from the voice of Foreign Minister Zarif and, just a few days ago, of Iranian President Rouhani, who reacted in this way before the US sanctions against 18 Iranian banks, accused of favoring the illegal activities of the regime.
Too bad that, as Alireza Nader , researcher of the think tank Foundation of Defense Democracies has shown , things are not at all in these terms. The American sanctions, in fact, do not in any way affect the possibility for Western companies to do business with the Islamic Republic in sectors such as food and medicines. On the other hand, to admit it, it was the same Iranian health minister Saeed Namaki when, on March 31 last, he clearly said that – despite the sanctions – there was no shortage in Iran of medicines necessary in the fight against Covid-19 .
Even earlier, in December 2019, Nader had always said the same thing – namely that there was no shortage of medicines in the country – this time reported directly by Tasnim News , an Iranian news agency close to the Pasdaran. On that occasion, as stated at the end of the Tasnim News article, the Iranian health minister also boasted that the budget for health services had been increased by 99 percent over the previous year. Indeed, the minister went so far as to argue that Iran was so capable of producing medicines on its own that it had exported them to Europe, Africa and Central Asia.
To disavow the claims of Zarif and Rouhani there are also stark data: in 2019, the import of medicines by Iran remained robust. On the other hand, speaking to the Irna agency, the director of the Iran-Switzerland Chamber of Commerce, Sharif Nezam Mafi, said that mechanisms such as the "Swiss Humanitarian Trade Arrangement" , allow you to safely export medicines to Iran without any risk of incurring American sanctions.
So why is there a lack of medicines in Iran? Again, to get an answer, we need to go back to the statements of the health minister Namaki. Speaking before Iranian deputies in a closed-door meeting, reported by Deutsche Welle in Farsi, Namaki denounced that it was not the American sanctions that destroyed the Iranian pharmaceutical supply system, but the corruption within the system and the mafia circle that "accumulates medicines in warehouses and distributes counterfeit ones on the market ”.
In a letter sent to Rouhani, Minister Namaki had also denounced the existence of a "sophisticated network" within the government, responsible for having made millions of masks disappear, forcing the Ministry of Health to turn to the black market.
On the other hand, as is known, the Iranian regime ranks 146th out of 180 countries, in the ranking of the Transparency International's Corruption Perception Index . The same FATF – Financial Action Task Force – judges Iran as a country at high risk of corruption, money laundering and financing of international terrorism.
In the past, during the era of denier Ahmadinejad, then health minister Vahid Dastjerdi was fired after denouncing on state television that "luxurious cars were important with dollar subsidies, but it is not known what happened to the dollars that had been set aside to import medicines ”.
In July 2019, Rouhani's chief of staff Mahmoud Vaezi admitted that over $ 1 billion that the regime had decided to use as a budget to import essential goods, including drugs, had "disappeared".
In September 2019, therefore, the regime arrested Shabnam Nematzadeh, daughter of a former minister of industry from Rouhani, owner of one of the Iranian pharmaceutical companies, for accumulating expired medicines and reselling them at prices above market prices. Thanks to its parallel network, Nematzadeh – and her partner – had accumulated over $ 42 million illegally.
In conclusion, that of the Iranian regime is only propaganda, in order to obtain unconditional international support. Europe, needless to say, has fallen fully, immediately setting up financial instruments to help the regime do business with European small and medium-sized enterprises. Too bad that, as already reported on Atlantico Quodiano , these European companies will find themselves facing a corrupt system and will involuntarily risk doing business with the Pasdaran, eventually ending up under secondary American sanctions. Not really a big deal …
The post Tehran accuses the US of sanctions, but if medicines are lacking it is the fault of the regime's endemic corruption appeared first on Atlantico Quotidiano .
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Atlantico Quotidiano at the URL http://www.atlanticoquotidiano.it/quotidiano/teheran-accusa-gli-usa-per-le-sanzioni-ma-se-mancano-medicinali-e-colpa-della-corruzione-endemica-del-regime/ on Sat, 17 Oct 2020 03:54:00 +0000.