Speaker of Parliament Approves Continuation of Investigation into Municipality

Despite judicial proceedings into the municipality’s violations, the parliamentary investigation and inspection of this case will continue. Some members of the Construction Commission had previously described the continuation of this investigation as contrary to parliamentary regulations.

On Tuesday evening, November 25th, Mahmoud Sadeghi, Ahmad Mazani, and Alireza Rahimi, three representatives who are signatories of the plan to investigate and inspect the municipality, met and held discussions with Ali Larijani, Speaker of the Islamic Consultative Assembly.

In recent days, a number of members of the Parliament’s Construction Commission had stated that given the examination of possible violations in the disposal of municipal properties by the judiciary, the continuation of the investigation and inspection by representatives violates internal regulations.

Sadeghi told ILNA news agency about this meeting: “Mr. Larijani, after hearing the explanations in today’s session, was very surprised about the issues raised by opponents of the inspection of Tehran Municipality and emphasized that conducting this inspection is not incompatible with the examination of the astronomical property file in the judiciary.”

Three Axes of Investigation and Inspection

A member of the presidium of the Omid faction says that following Larijani’s remarks today, the plan to investigate and inspect the municipality will be placed on the agenda of the first Construction Commission session, and all news published about its cancellation will be denied.

This plan has been prepared in three axes, the first of which relates to “the acquisition and disposal of properties, including land and housing by Tehran Municipality to legal and natural persons, which includes the subject of property disposal to some members of the city council.”

Sadeghi had told ILNA news agency on November 9th: “Participatory projects of Tehran Municipality with natural and legal persons constitute another axis of the investigation and inspection plan, and the third axis of this plan concerns agreements made by Tehran Municipality with natural and legal persons resulting from land use changes.”

Promise of Judicial Follow-up

According to Tasnim news agency, Gholamhossein Mohseni-Eje had said in his press conference on November 23rd that the judicial system is handling the municipality’s property file “without any leniency and based on legal standards.”

The judiciary spokesperson said: “Tehran’s prosecutor’s office is waiting to receive documents from the State Audit Court, and after that, naturally, those cases where crimes have occurred will be handled without any leniency and with the utmost necessary precision and greater speed.”

Ahmad Tavakkoli, a former parliament representative and director of the Transparency and Justice civil society organization, on November 17th held a press conference explaining the results of his organization’s review of the municipality’s property file, according to which “municipal violations are proven.”

In September of this year, a letter signed by the inspector general of the State Audit Court stationed at Tehran Municipality was published online, in which the names of 180 people, including a number of municipality officials and city council members, were published in connection with the disposal of municipal properties.

According to Tavakkoli: “From the list of 180 people published, what the observer has proven is 108 disposals through which 110 properties are transferred to 122 people. The reason for the discrepancy in figures is that in some cases, two properties are disposed in one transfer, or one property is disposed to several people.”

According to this report, the total financial value of the disposed properties exceeded 82 billion tomans, and the discount amount given to individuals exceeded 24 billion tomans.

Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, Tehran’s Mayor, says that all disposals and discounts were carried out according to law, and in some cases the municipality’s assistance included cooperatives that do not belong to this organization.

Tehran’s Mayor says one of these cases was the judiciary’s cooperative that “had its problems resolved with the municipality’s help.” This file still has many ambiguities that the parliamentary investigation and inspection is supposed to clarify.

Source: DW