Mr. Adel Azar who was addressing the Parliament open session with a report of the Scandal, said that Ministry of Oil, Health, Central Bank, IMIDRO and IDRO subsidiaries, banks, and insurance companies had been bodies where officials escaped or ignored their inordinate salary bills. He recommended Parliament to exercise no leniency in the face of lavish payments made and to dismiss and to indict officials receiving the putative amount.
Azar’s report included six articles where he summarized the figures received by heads and deputy-heads of the government bodies; “1. The amount of additional payment apart from government-endorsed amount of $5,700, made to 397 high-ranking officials had been $6.8mn;
2. The amount of banks’ low-interest rate loans paid to 104 officials apart from endorsed $22,900 had been $6.8mn;
3. In the period examined, we found that the majority of payments (far beyond the amounts endorsed by the government), had been made in government bodies not covered by or exempt from Comprehensive Scheme of Salary in Ministry of Oil and its subsidiaries, Ministry of Health and some universities affiliated, the Central Bank, and IMIDRO and IDRO; other bodies exempt from the Comprehensive Scheme are NDFI (National Development Fund of Iran), banks and insurance companies in general;
4. Proactive measures had however been taken by the Minister of Economy in response to correspondences made in 2014 and 2015 which communicated to the Ministry the illegality and unconstitutionality of extraordinary payments endorsed by some of articles of 5th Development Plan. The sum of measures proved somehow effective in curbing the payments and reforming the regulations;
5. The Cabinet issued a directive No. 39 of implementing Budget Plan of 2016 where it conditioned payment of low-interest rate loans and other sorts of credit by government bodies, banks, and insurance companies and other organizations subject to the directive, on compliance with rules and regulations laid by the Central Banks and Ministry of Economic Affairs. So far, 498 files of salaries, benefits, and other receiving types and low-interest rate loans to government officials subject to restrictions of the Comprehensive Scheme of Salary have received verdicts by Audit courts.
6. We found that so far, $1.4mn of illegal payments had been returned to the public treasury, and there should be a strong resolve to restore reaming lump sum to the public wallet. We recommend government bodies to dismiss from public service and to officially indict those officials in addition to forcing them to return illicit money they illegally hoarded.”
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