Iran judiciary investigates Ahmadinejad-era hiring practices
In Iran’s latest corruption case, the administration of former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad stands accused of overseeing the hiring of hundreds of thousands of unqualified ministerial staff members.
The spokesman for a parliamentary investigative committee has said that cases of personnel violations under the Mahmoud Ahmadinejad administration have been sent to the judiciary.
Mostafa Afzali Fard, spokesman for the Iranian Parliament’s Article 90 Commission, did not specify which cases or officials in the previous administration were under investigation. However, he told the Islamic Consultative Assembly News Agency that the judiciary had a responsibility to attend to the cases “with speed.”
The most recent accusation of corruption under the Ahmadinejad presidency surfaced July 16. According to Iranian parliamentarian, Gholamali Jaffarizadeh Imanabadi, 450,000 of 650,000 personnel hired under the previous administration were “illegally employed,” some of them reportedly through family and personal connections.
According to Jafarzadeh, the most severe hiring violations occurred at the Education Ministry. Of the 76,000 people hired by the ministry in the final two years of Ahmadinejad’s administration, approximately 2% were illiterate, 14% had only primary education, 19% had middle school education and 1% graduated from high school.
