Iran's further immersion in the whirlpool of financial corruption

Gah Fereydoun Habawan: In the latest report by the famous organization "Transparency International", which was published on Thursday, January 28, 2021, the Islamic Republic of Iran ranked 149th among 180 countries surveyed in terms of corruption.

According to this organization's assessment, Iran is on the red list in the global classification of countries from the perspective of financial corruption, and in terms of the degree of contamination with this scourge, it is on a par with Cameroon, Guatemala, Lebanon, Madagascar, Mozambique, Nigeria, and Tajikistan.

"Corruption Perceptions" Index

Transparency International, a German-based non-governmental organization with representation in about 100 countries around the world, has been publishing an annual report since 1995 that ranks countries in terms of financial corruption, and it enjoys great credibility in economic and academic circles around the world.

Corruption, as defined by Transparency International, is the abuse of political and government positions by officials to obtain financial benefits and material benefits. It is naturally not possible to accurately assess the extent of corruption in a country based on specific and scientifically measurable criteria, especially since the corrupt operate in the dark and have complete control over the mechanisms of concealment. So what should be done?

The way out of this difficulty, from the perspective of Transparency International, is to use a new index called “Corruption Perceptions,” which is prepared based on a survey of representatives of financial circles, economic activists, experts, academics, and civil society representatives inside and outside the countries. In other words, “Corruption Perceptions” is a composite index that is defined based on the perception of domestic and international business circles, internal and external scientific and expert centers, and civil society of the manifestations of corruption in a country and its scope, from bribery of officials to the price of “golden signatures” and embezzlement in government auctions and tenders…

It is based on this "corruption perception" index that Transparency International scores and ranks various countries in the world. A score of 100 means complete absence of corruption and cleanliness, and the closer a country's score is to zero, the more widespread corruption there is. In the latest Transparency International report, Denmark and New Zealand are ranked first with a score of 88 out of 100, and South Sudan and Somalia are ranked last with a score of 12 out of 100.

Year after year, regretting last year

How does Transparency International rank Iran in terms of corruption? What has caught the attention of Iranians the most in its reports over the past few years is the country's deepening corruption. Over the past four years, from 2017 to 2020, Iran's score on the Corruption Perceptions Index has steadily declined each year, falling from 30 to 25. At the same time, Iran's position in the list of countries with the highest level of corruption, which was 130th in 2017, has fallen to 149th in 2020.

In the latest Transparency International report, we see that Iran is 100 places below Rwanda, 82 places below Senegal, and 63 places below Burkina Faso in the country ranking in terms of financial corruption.

Among the 18 countries surveyed in the Middle East and North Africa, only four countries - Iraq, Libya, Yemen, and Syria - are in a worse position than Iran in terms of the degree of corruption.

It is worth noting that in the same region, the United Arab Emirates ranks 21st in the Transparency International table, and is in a better position than France and the United States in terms of corruption. In the same table of Middle Eastern and North African countries, we see that Iran is 119th behind Qatar, 114th behind Israel, 100th behind Oman, and 97th behind Saudi Arabia in terms of corruption.

This is the situation of a country that, in the preamble to its constitution, promised the people that it would place "the righteous" in the seat of power instead of the corrupt: "In creating political institutions and foundations, which are the basis for the formation of society, based on a school of thought, the righteous will be responsible for governing and administering the country."

Now, instead of the “righteous” people promised by the constitution, the Iranian people see looters who, relying on state-owned companies, quasi-state institutions, and enterprises known as “specialties,” control about 80 percent of the country’s GDP. They are the undisputed rulers of the Iranian economy and have all the country’s sources of wealth, directly and indirectly, in their hands.

In fact, all the country's interactions serve the interests of the "righteous"; they both benefit from economic sanctions and from their lifting, from the rise in the price of the dollar in the free foreign exchange market and from its collapse, from the expansion of the public sector and from what they call "privatization," and from the booming stock market and from its recession to their own advantage...

It is this widespread and "systematic" corruption that has placed Iran in its current shameful position in the classification of Transparency International. What is very important is that this position has never been officially protested or denied by expert sources in the Islamic Republic and prominent figures in the regime.

Source: Radio Farda