For years, the fabric of the mullahs’ regime ruling Iran has been intertwined with corruption and plunder. Even regime supreme leader Ali Khamenei admitted during the anniversary of the anti-monarchical revolution in 2018: “Corruption is like the mythical seven-headed dragon; when you cut off one head, the other six continue to move.” However, this dragon has not only persisted but has grown larger and more monstrous each year, continuing to steal the wealth of the people.
The agents of the clerical regime themselves admit that “corruption has struck at the roots of the system.”
On September 1, 2016, the state-run Mardomsalari news website wrote, “Not a day goes by without news of financial abuse, embezzlement, or massive bribery being heard. The figures have numbed the minds of the people, to the point where even mathematics cannot express them anymore.”
The cancer of corruption has spread throughout the system. Even Mohammad Javad Hojjati Kermani, a close associate of Khamenei, admitted, “The cancer of corruption has engulfed the entire system, ranging from moral decline and hypocrisy to economic corruption and internal conflicts” (Source: Ettelaat newspaper, August 19, 2019).
However, the severity and depth of regime corruption from those years to the present day is incomparable. According to a report by the Transparency Lab on February 7, 2023, corruption in Iran’s ruling system is defined as “the legal or illegal misuse of power for personal or factional interests, or to strengthen the power of the political structure.”
The corruption dominating the structural and systemic relations of the regime has become so pervasive and deep-rooted that terms like “under-the-table payment,” “tea money,” “kids’ share,” and “sweetener,” or more bluntly, “bribe,” are familiar to many Iranian citizens dealing with government offices.
The main institutions and organizations that demand bribes from ordinary citizens include “municipalities, the police force, courts, banks, the tax authority, brokers and intermediaries of organizations and high-ranking officials, customs offices, the tax department, real estate registration offices, civil registry offices, and banks. These entities have been at the forefront of those where administrative obstacles are easily removed through the payment of bribes, and they have contaminated other governmental agencies as well” (Source: Open Data, April 27, 2021).
Economist Ahmad Alavi states: “Systemic corruption in Iran still has many unknown dimensions that account for much of the imbalances in the Iranian economy, such as budgetary discrepancies, energy shortages, issues with pensions, and banking sector crises. What is observed and experienced as corruption is merely a small part, or the ‘tip of the iceberg,’ emerging from the sea of corruption” (Source: Iran-e Emrooz, November 24).
According to Alavi, the regime operates based on a “model of economic rentierism, where oil revenues and other key national resources are allocated not for sustainable development but to maintain the loyalty of officials, supporters of the Supreme Leader, and to strengthen power factions. This allocation also funds soft and hard repression and the export of the Supreme Leader’s ideological discourse. Institutions like the Islamic Revolution Guard Corps (IRGC), semi-private companies, and religious foundations dominate much of the economy, effectively eliminating transparency, accountability, and competition.”
Not long ago, Ali Rabiei, the Minister of Labor during Hassan Rouhani’s presidency (2013-2021), revealed that a member of parliament had offered 500 billion rials in exchange for a managerial position in the Social Security Investment Company (Shasta).
On November 25, Sazandegi news website quoted Rabiei as saying, “Not a week goes by without receiving at least two confidential reports of corruption within the companies affiliated with the Ministry of Labor.”
Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, speaker of Majlis (Parliament), also presented another example of government corruption: “Between 25 to 30 million liters of fuel are smuggled out of the country daily. Make no mistake; this smuggling is organized, and the primary producers and major consumers are the first suppliers of this smuggling” (Source: Jahan-e Sanat news website, November 27).
On November 27, a reporter at Rouydad 24 website wrote, “At a meeting of media managers, I seized the opportunity to raise an issue I found critical: the problem of social anger. A powerful feeling told me that this anger poses dangerous consequences for the country, and action must be taken urgently to address it. During the session, I asked Mr. Ghalibaf, ‘What is your share and that of your allies and opponents in creating these conditions? The country is at the edge of a cliff, where even a single grain of sand slipping could lead to a collapse.'”