Health Minister Reports 50 Trillion Tomans Corruption in Medicine; Health Ministry Denies

A parliament representative says Saeed Namaki, the Health Minister, reported the occurrence of “50 trillion tomans corruption in medicine” during his Sunday meeting with a number of representatives; however, the Health Ministry has denied such a statement.

According to Hossein Naghavi Hosseini, the representative of Varamin in parliament, the Health Minister said in his Sunday meeting with members of the “Provincial Representatives Faction” that when he took over this ministry in 2018, “corruption in the drug sector was painfully dominant” and in addition to “the occurrence of 50 trillion tomans corruption in medicine,” “we don’t know where one billion dollars of medical equipment was spent.”

According to the same report, the Health Minister also referred to “a powerful corruption mafia in this field” and said that “80 billion tomans in media spending against the Health Ministry took place.”

However, hours after the news was published in Iranian media, Kianush Jahanpour, head of the Health Ministry’s Public Relations and Information Center, said: the phrase “50 trillion tomans corruption in the medical system” was “by no means in the Health Minister’s statements” and “50 trillion tomans is the total volume of the drug and medical equipment market.”

Nevertheless, the Health Minister repeated on his Twitter the issue of the unknown fate of one billion and three hundred million dollars in foreign currency for medical equipment.

Source: Radio Farda