A number of Ministry of Health employees arrested on corruption charges
Saeed Namaki, Iran's Minister of Health, said that a number of employees of the ministry have been arrested and are being interrogated on charges of "financial corruption, misuse of state currency resources, and importing expired medicines." They have also made confessions.
Saeed Namaki, Minister of Health and Medical Education, told reporters on Tuesday, July 16: "Some individuals who collaborated with the offending companies in the Food and Drug Administration have been arrested and are being interrogated, and have also made confessions. We are determined to prepare the Food and Drug Administration to serve the people with utmost cleanliness."
According to IRNA, Saeed Namaki emphasized: "For about four months, groups have been working in a blindfolded manner on the foreign exchange received by companies importing medical equipment. In terms of where this foreign exchange was spent and who received it, some people committed violations that we are investigating and will deal with these cases legally."
According to the Iranian Minister of Health, in some cases expired medicines have been imported into the country. Also, with 2 million euros of government currency, instead of “heart stents,” “electric cables” have been imported. “There are also cases where equipment has been imported and transferred to the private sector by receiving government currency.”
The Minister of Health asked for help from the media to fight corruption. He said, "One of our problems is that people who have been exploiting for years have media connections, and in the fight against corruption, our biggest lever is the clean media that we have in the country. We need the help of the media to break the toxic propaganda atmosphere of this movement that does not want to let the truth come out."
The Minister of Health, Treatment and Medical Education went to the parliament on Sunday, July 13, to appear before the Health Commission. After appearing in the parliament, he wrote on his Instagram: “Rent networks, corruption, and monopolies in a thousand and one colors are selling the livelihood and medicine needed by the people on the black market from the pockets of the nation, hoarding in open and hidden warehouses, and distributing counterfeit medicine in the market.”
Saeed Namaki has announced that the economic corruption network is spending billions to destroy him and the ministry under his command, but he will not back down from pursuing, identifying, and exposing this network.
The Minister of Health said: "Alongside the Food and Drug Administration, they had created a system whose server was located outside these borders and only a few people had access to its information. We have been working on this issue for four months. $1.3 billion in medical equipment was lost, and it is still not clear exactly who took it, what it brought, and who it gave it to."
Source: DW
