Iran Sinking Deeper into Financial Corruption Quagmire
Fereydoun Khavand: In the latest report by the renowned organization “Transparency International,” released on Thursday, January 28, 2021, the Islamic Republic of Iran ranks 149th among 180 countries reviewed in terms of corruption levels.
According to this organization’s assessment, Iran is placed on the red list in the global classification of countries from the perspective of financial corruption and is at the same level as Cameroon, Guatemala, Lebanon, Madagascar, Mozambique, Nigeria, and Tajikistan in terms of the degree of contamination by this scourge.
The “Perception of Corruption” Index
“Transparency International,” which is a German-based non-governmental organization with representatives in approximately one hundred countries worldwide, has been publishing an annual report since 1995 that is dedicated to classifying countries from the perspective of financial corruption and enjoys considerable credibility in economic and academic circles worldwide.
According to Transparency International’s definition, corruption is the misuse of official positions by office holders for the purpose of obtaining financial benefits and material gains. Accurately assessing the extent of corruption in a country based on specific and scientifically measurable criteria is naturally not possible, especially since corrupt individuals operate in darkness and have complete control over concealment mechanisms. So what should be done?
According to Transparency International, the way to overcome this difficulty is to use a new index called “Perception of Corruption,” which is prepared based on surveying representatives from financial circles, economic activists, experts, academics, and representatives of civil society within and outside countries. In other words, “Perception of Corruption” is a composite index based on the understanding of domestic and international business circles, internal and external scientific and expert centers, and civil society regarding the manifestations of corruption in a country and its scope, ranging from bribery by office holders to the price of “golden signatures” and embezzlement in government tenders and auctions.
It is on the basis of this “Perception of Corruption” index that Transparency International assigns scores to various countries of the world and ranks them. A score of one hundred means the absence of corruption and complete purity, and the closer a country’s score is to zero, the more widespread corruption is in that country. In the latest Transparency International report, Denmark and New Zealand rank first with a score of 88 out of 100, while South Sudan and Somalia rank last with a score of 12 out of 100.
Year After Year, Worse Than Last Year
Where does Transparency International place Iran in terms of financial corruption? What has captured Iranians’ attention most in this organization’s reports over the past few years is the country’s increasing sinking into the quagmire of financial corruption. Over the past four years, from 2017 to 2020, Iran’s score based on the “Perception of Corruption” index has consistently decreased each year, falling from 30 to 25. Simultaneously, Iran’s position in the list of countries in terms of financial corruption, which was ranked 130th in 2017, has plummeted to 149th in 2020.
In the latest Transparency International report, we see that Iran is one hundred places lower than Rwanda, eighty-two places lower than Senegal, and sixty-three places lower than Burkina Faso in the classification of countries in terms of financial corruption.
Among the eighteen countries reviewed in the Middle East and North Africa, only four countries—Iraq, Libya, Yemen, and Syria—have a worse corruption rating than Iran.
It is worth noting that in the same region, the United Arab Emirates ranks 21st in the Transparency International table and is in a more favorable position in terms of corruption than France and America. In the same table of Middle Eastern and North African countries, we see that Iran is 119 places behind Qatar, 114 places behind Israel, 100 places behind Oman, and 97 places behind Saudi Arabia in terms of corruption rating.
This is the condition of a country that in the preamble of its constitution promised its people that it would place the “righteous” instead of the corrupt on the throne of government: “In establishing institutions and political foundations that form the basis of society itself, according to the Islamic ideology, the righteous shall be entrusted with the governance and management of the country.”
Now, instead of the “righteous” that the constitution promised, the Iranian people see plunderers who, relying on state-owned enterprises, quasi-governmental institutions, and entities known as “khosoulti,” control approximately eighty percent of the country’s gross domestic product. These are the unchallenged rulers of Iran’s economy and hold all the country’s wealth resources directly and indirectly in their grasp.
In fact, all of the country’s activities are carried out in service of these “righteous” individuals’ interests; they profit from economic sanctions and from the lifting of sanctions, benefit from the rise in the dollar’s price in the free currency market and from its fall, profit from the expansion of the public sector and from what they call “privatization,” become wealthier from booming stock markets and exploit the recession to their advantage…
It is this widespread and “systematic” corruption that has placed Iran in its current shameful position in Transparency International’s classification. A very important point is that this position has never been formally confronted with objections or denials by Iran’s expert sources or prominent figures of the system.
Source: Radio Farda
