Health Minister: We are involved in organized corruption in drug imports

In a meeting with members of parliament, Iran's health minister mentioned the network of monopoly and hoarding in the import of medicines and said that the fate of $1.3 billion in foreign currency for medical equipment is unknown. He also revealed the distribution of counterfeit medicines.

“Rent and corruption” in drug imports have been the central topic of the Iranian Health Minister’s meetings with the provincial faction and the parliamentary health commission. Saeed Namaki wrote on his Instagram after these two meetings: “Rent, corruption, and monopoly networks 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.”

Mr. Namaki, who was the CEO of several pharmaceutical companies before taking office as the Health Minister, 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: "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 worth of medical equipment has gone missing, and it is still not clear exactly who took it, what they brought, and who they gave it to."

Drug import mafia

Akbar Turki, spokesman for the Parliament's Health Commission, quoted Saeed Namaki as saying: "A group of people were importing similar domestic drugs and exerting pressure to disrupt domestic drug production in the country."

The Khabar Online website also quotes the Minister of Health as saying: "We were involved in organized corruption in medicine and medical equipment, and even some companies affiliated with the Ministry of Health. I have no hesitation in saying that many of these companies affiliated with the Foreign Exchange Board of Trustees each have some kind of problem. Of course, we are conducting an audit, and after that, most of these companies will also be dissolved."

Saeed Namaki has announced that during his tenure as the Minister of Health, he faced corruption in the Board of Trustees of the Foreign Exchange and the Food and Drug Administration, and took over a chaotic and troubled system with heavy arrears: "The Social Security Insurance had not paid the Ministry of Health for about 17 months. Even with a 400 percent increase in its resources, the Health Insurance could not cover its expenses. At the same time, there is a lot of unfinished work and promises."

Minister critic, Minister critics

The Health Minister's revealing remarks were made and published at a time when a number of MPs are seeking his impeachment. Asadullah Abbasi, a member of the Roudsar parliament, said, among other things: "There is a lot of criticism of the performance of the Health Minister and the management weaknesses in this ministry. The minister's personal management weaknesses, the lack of strict supervision over the production and import of medicines, problems related to the shortage of medicines, the failure to properly implement the family doctor plan, the failure to implement the plan to electronicize medical records, and the shortage of specialist doctors in hospitals in deprived areas are among the important areas of impeachment of the Health Minister."

Ali Fatemi, a member of the board of directors of the Iranian Pharmacists Association, told the newspaper Shargh: "Unfortunately, some work in the Food and Drug Administration is done through orders, relationships, and even a phone call. It could be a phone order for importing drugs worth several million euros or a simple phone call to issue a license for a simple company." He added that this corruption will continue as long as the role of NGOs and the media is not valued.

"Sharq" writes that corruption in the health sector and the Ministry of Health has existed since the past: "With the departure of each official, part of it is revealed, and officials, not seeing the problems of their time, try to expose the problems and corruption that preceded them."

Meanwhile, the Ministry of Health's public relations office has denied the quote from the provincial representatives' faction's spokesperson of the minister's statements. Naqvi Hosseini told the media that Saeed Namaki had informed them of corruption worth 50 trillion tomans in the medical system during a meeting with them. The head of the Ministry of Health's public relations and information center told ISNA that 50 trillion tomans is the total volume of the medicine and medical equipment market, and the minister did not say anything about the medical system in his remarks.

Source: DW