Iran is seeing record high income from oil, yet regular Iranian citizens are not feeling the positive impact on their lives. Many point to the corrupt practices of the terrorist designated IRGC with its members infesting the cabinet.
While top Iranian officials tout record income on oil exports, lawmakers, observers, and civilians are wondering where all the money is going.
Oil Minister Javad Owji on March 24 said that “Iran has reached a record high of crude exports and revenues since sanctions hit the country’s oil industry in 2018”.
In early February, Fars News agency, which is affiliated with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), reported that the country’s oil export income grew almost 500% in the first five months of the Raisi administration.
These and other statistics by regime officials, most reported with no proof, have sparked intense debate inside Iran about where the profits are ending up.
The issue is particularly acute as Iranians are suffering from growing poverty, unemployment, inflation and desperation.
Many Iranians see a direct connection between the oil income embezzlement, and corruption in general, and the past and present IRGC officers who enjoy disproportionate representation and privileged positions in Raisi’s administration.
A notorious IRGC figure in the current cabinet is Rostam Ghasemi, minister of roads and urban development, who was also former president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s oil minister.
Ghasemi, who is the former commander of the terrorist designated IRGC Khatam-al-Anbiya Construction Headquarters, is under US sanctions for his involvement in many of the IRGC’s corrupt, mafia-like economic deals.
With 40 years of experience in the IRGC, he has held positions from the commander of Khatam al-Anbiya base to deputy economic director of the IRGC-QF.
Other members of the Raisi cabinet have been charged with corruption and embezzlement by the Islamic Republic’s own judiciary system, while others have been charged with terrorist acts and are “wanted” or sanctioned by the West.
Source » iranbriefing