Health Minister: We Are Dealing with Organized Corruption in Drug Imports

Iran’s Health Minister, in a meeting with parliamentary representatives, spoke about monopoly and hoarding networks in drug imports and stated that the fate of 1.3 billion dollars in foreign currency for medical equipment is unclear. He also exposed the distribution of counterfeit drugs.

“Rent-seeking and corruption” in drug imports was the central topic of Iran’s Health Minister’s meetings with the Parliamentary Loyalty Faction and the Health Commission of parliament. Saeed Namaki, after these two meetings, wrote on his Instagram: “Rent-seeking networks, corruption, and monopoly in a thousand and one forms feed themselves from the people’s pocket and offer the drugs people need in the black market, hoard them in visible and hidden warehouses, and distribute counterfeit drugs in the market.”

Mr. Namaki, who before taking office as Health Minister was CEO of several pharmaceutical factories, announced that the economic corruption network spends billions to destroy him and his ministry, but he will not back down from pursuing, identifying and exposing this network: “Alongside the Food and Drug Organization, they had set up a system whose server was located outside these borders and only a few individuals had access to its information. We have been working on this issue for four months. 1.3 billion dollars in foreign currency for medical equipment has gone, and it is still not clear exactly who took it, what they brought, and to whom they gave it.”

Drug Import Mafia

Akbar Torki, spokesperson for the Health Commission of parliament, quoting Saeed Namaki, said: “A group of people were importing drugs similar to domestic ones and were pressuring to disrupt domestic drug production in the country.”

The NewsOnline website also quotes the Health Minister as saying: “We were dealing with organized corruption in drugs and medical equipment, and even some companies affiliated with the Health Ministry, and I have no problem saying that many of these companies affiliated to the foreign currency supervisory board each have problems in some way, of course we are conducting audits and after that most of these companies will also be dissolved.”

Saeed Namaki announced that during his tenure as Health Minister, he encountered corruption breaches in the foreign currency supervisory board and the Food and Drug Organization, and took over a chaotic organization full of troubles and with heavy arrears: “Social Security Insurance had not paid the Health Ministry’s bills for approximately 17 months, Health Insurance even with 400 percent growth in its resources could not handle its expenses, at the same time there is a multitude of unfinished tasks and unfulfilled promises.”

Critical Minister, Ministers’ Critics

The Health Minister’s revelatory statements were made and published while a number of parliamentary representatives are seeking his impeachment. Assadollah Abbasi, representative from Rudsar, said: “Many criticisms have been raised about the performance of the Health Minister and management weaknesses in this ministry. Management weakness of the minister personally, lack of precise oversight in drug production and imports, problems related to drug shortages, failure to properly implement the family physician plan, failure to implement the electronic health record plan, and shortage of specialist doctors in hospitals in deprived areas are among the important axes of the impeachment of the Health Minister.”

Ali Fatemi, member of the board of directors of the Iranian Pharmacists Association, told the “Shargh” newspaper: “Unfortunately, in the Food and Drug Organization, some work is done by order, connections, and even a phone call, and it is possible that a phone order regarding drug imports with a currency value of several million euros or a simple phone call for issuing a company’s license to be simple.” He added that this corruption will continue as long as the role of civil society organizations and media are not valued.

“Shargh” writes that corruption formed in the field of health and the Health Ministry has existed in the past: “With the departure of each official, part of it is revealed, and officials, without seeing the problems of their own time, try to expose the problems and corruption of their predecessors.”

Meanwhile, the public relations of the Health Ministry has denied the quote of the spokesman of the Loyalty Faction of representatives from the minister’s statements. Naqvi Hosseini told media that Saeed Namaki informed them about 50 trillion tomans in corruption in the medical system during the meeting. The head of the center for public relations and information of the Health Ministry told ISNA news agency that 50 trillion tomans is the total volume of the drug and medical equipment market, and the minister said nothing about the medical system in his remarks.

Source: DW