Iranian Tea Importer Faces Allegations Of Currency Misuse
The head of Iran’s Inspection Organization has disclosed that a prominent tea importer has come under scrutiny for questionable financial practices.
The head of Iran’s Inspection Organization has disclosed that a prominent tea importer has come under scrutiny for questionable financial practices.
The company, handling the majority of the country's tea imports, reportedly received a staggering $3.37 billion in foreign currency at discounted government rate for tea and machinery imports from 2019 to 2022. However, it has allegedly sold $1.4 billion of the currency on the free market at a higher rate.
Zabihollah Khodayian highlighted the company's alleged transgressions, emphasizing its violation of premium-grade tea orders. However, he did not disclose the name of the company.
“Despite registering a $14 per kilogram order for premium Darjeeling tea from India, the company purportedly imported significantly cheaper Kenyan tea and bought Iranian grade-two tea at a value of around $2 per kilogram,” added Khodayian.
The government, controlling the economy and foreign currencies allocates cheaper foreign currency to facilitate crucial imports.
The Central Bank of Iran operates the NIMA currency scheme to make imports more affordable and control inflation. The system allows exporters to sell foreign currency at a reduced rate and permits importers to purchase currency at the same lower rate to finance their transactions abroad.
However, the official government rate of around 370,000 rials to the dollar in the NIMA scheme contrasts sharply with the free market rate of about 510,000 rials. This disparity has led to corrupt practices, where well-connected entities exploit the lower rate, obtaining cheap dollars and diverting them for purposes other than intended imports.
The Iranian government, grappling with economic complexities exacerbated by sanctions, regularly intervenes in the currency market to stabilize the beleaguered rial. Despite these efforts, the challenges persist, and instances of currency misuse continue to pose serious concerns.
The statement comes after more questions have risen about how the parliament has become a rubber stamp and hardliners dominating the government get their power from Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s office. Consequently, questions also arise as to what the constitutional powers of the Supreme Leader are and do elections and elected offices mean anything, when he can dictate his will.
Hardline cleric Morteza Aqa-Tehrani, the chairman of the central council of ultraconservative Paydari Party recently quoted the party's founding father, Ayatollah Mohammad Taqi Mesbah-Yazdi as having called for the nation's absolute obedience to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.
Aqa-Tehrani quoted Mesbah as saying, "The absolute rule of the Supreme Leader is not enough as the theory of government under the Islamic Republic. The system also needs absolute obedience of the people to the supreme leader."
The statement effectively would render the legislative system in Iran meaningless. According to the ultraconservative party, Khamenei can make any decision, and the people will have no choice other than obeying what he decrees. What makes Aqa-Tehrani’s statement more dangerous is that his party is poised to gain absolute majority in the March parliamentary elections that are being heavily engineered to give a monopoly of power to hardliners.
Commentator Abbas Abdi writing in Tehran’s reformist daily Etemad on Saturday argued that those who speak about “absolute obedience” to the Supreme Leader, in fact are doing a disservice to him. A modern state cannot be governed on that basis because the world has changed in the past 200 years and now governing a country needs expertise in different fields, he stated. Those who insist on absolute obedience in fact leave the Supreme Leader in a lonely position, vulnerable to all things that can go wrong and make him a target for blame.
Mr. Khamenei has already entered the unenviable position of being seen as responsible for a once rich and promising developing country that is now on the verge of becoming a failed state. Anti-regime protests in recent years have demonstrated that increasingly many people have turned against Khamenei, seeing him as responsible for a failed state and an impediment to a better life.
Iran’s economy, straddled with unsurmountable inefficiencies of nepotism and political control, has little hope of resuming development and progress. Sitting on the world’s second largest natural gas resources, Iran faces domestic shortages, let alone an ability to export.
Crude oil exports, limited by US sanctions, are not even enough to help bridge a 50-percent budget gap. The country needs $160 billion to overhaul and modernize its energy sector, according to oil minister Javad Owji, but its annual crude exports barely reach $22 billion. Iran resembles a football player who has lost track of the ball and no matter how fast he runs, it seems too late to catch up.
Iranians see this hopeless situation as the result of Khamenei’s 34-year rule, and his hardline loyalists resort to more praise and demands of full obedience, while many see his days numbered at the old age of 84.
Recently, former President Hassan Rouhani publicly referred to the inevitable, the death of the leader, and hinted at the need to look forward. This week, a senior cleric revealed that a small committee is looking into appointing a deputy leader. But the day after Khamenei’s eventual passing is what many whisper about. Who would replace him. Will there be a nasty power struggle, or even a “collective leadership” to replace the Supreme Leader? What will the Revolutionary Guard do? Will they push their own candidate, or they will start an internal power struggle?
Abdi referring to “absolute obedience” wrote, “I would like to say that those who make this statement are essentially pursuing their own agendas. By seemingly expressing support for the velayat-e faqih (Supreme Leader), they aim to advance their projects. Lacking intellectual courage and self-sufficiency, they seek to promote their plans through this statement.”
