The Iranian regime’s Majlis (parliament) passed a motion agreeing with eliminating the subsidized currency (the U.S. dollar exchanged at a cheaper price of 42,000 rials) in this fiscal year’s budget despite prior warnings about the possible skyrocketing inflation and eventual economic crisis. The market exchange rate is around 270,000 rials per dollar.
Contradictory remarks by officials of the regime’s Health Ministry over eliminating the subsidized dollar used to import medicine at cheaper prices has been causing grave concerns among ordinary Iranians over the rapid increase in the cost of medicine across the board.
“ Regarding the issue of medicine this year , the subsidized dollar has been eliminated and companies will no longer face delays in receiving their raw material with subsidized currency because the process would take too long,” said Health Minister Bahram Einollahi on March 26 at a meeting with directors of the Beheshti Medical Sciences University.
A few hours after Einollahi’s remarks, the caretaker of the Health Ministry’s Public Relations Office said, “To this day the Health Ministry has not received any instructions about the elimination of subsidized currency in this fiscal year’s budget to procure medicine and medical equipment. The use of subsidized currency continues as we speak.”
Earlier, head of the regime’s Food and Drug Organization had said in January that “they have eliminated subsidized currency in this fiscal budget’s currency” and instead “credit will be provided to insurance organizations.” What goes unmentioned here, as always, is the fact that insurance entities in Iran are one of the main mediums used by the mullahs’ regime to plunder the Iranian people and that they are closely linked to a deeply rooted mafia system connected directly to Iranian regime Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.
It is not clear how the Health Ministry seeks to prepare the grounds to implement the Majlis’ motion to eliminate subsidized currency for medicine, and when this law will be administered.
Homayoun Same-Yah Najaf Abadi, a member of the Majlis Health Commission, had previously suggested that assessments indicate the price of domestically produced medicine will rise by 30 percent during this fiscal year. However, the prices of imported medicine will increase at least three to five-fold, he added.
It is worth noting that the mullahs’ regime has long been implementing various measures to further plunder the Iranian people. Eliminating subsidized currency for medicine is the latest scheme. Back in November 2021, one regime expert warned prices will increase by even five to seven-fold.
Such a massive shock to Iran’s society comes at a time when “patients are already facing prices hitting the roof” and cannot even purchase ordinary medicine, according to reports by the regime’s official and semi-official news agencies in November and December 2021.
As a result, medicine prices increasing by five to seven-fold has no meaning other than patients across Iran being forced to accept their slow death. All the while, the mullahs’ regime continues to allocate hundreds of billions of dollars to its expanding nuclear weapons program, advancing its ballistic missile arsenal, fueling global terrorism, and strengthening its domestic crackdown apparatus.
Through this latest scheme the mullahs’ regime intends to push a false narrative to prevent an outburst of public anger, while hiking the prices of medicine to rob the people of their savings and enrich those individuals and entities linked to the regime.
Such methods are part of the regime’s modus operandi. Prior to increasing the price of gasoline by up to 300 percent back in November 2019, for around one year the regime’s media outlets were busy publishing unofficial reports of increases in energy prices. Following a series of confirmations and denials, regime officials sought to prepare the society and public opinion for a spike in gasoline prices, and according to their own officials, prevent the dangerous outcome of the inevitable “social shock.” However, the world witnessed the resulting November 2019 uprising that shook the regime to the core as protests spread throughout the country with lightning speed.
As such, Khamenei intends to plunder the Iranian people once again at the price of their health and well-being. He has already begun his preliminary measures to prepare the Iranian society for such a massive shock. However, according to the regime’s own officials, the explosive state of Iran’s society cannot be compared even to that of November 2019.
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