{"id":8212,"date":"2020-08-20T15:38:16","date_gmt":"2020-08-20T12:38:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/?p=8212"},"modified":"2020-10-08T10:21:55","modified_gmt":"2020-10-08T07:21:55","slug":"bazprash-appointed-as-the-new-head-of-irans-supreme-audit-court","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/monitoring-and-translation\/reports\/bazprash-appointed-as-the-new-head-of-irans-supreme-audit-court\/","title":{"rendered":"Bazprash Appointed as the New Head of Iran\u2019s Supreme Audit Court"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Iran\u2019s Supreme Audit Court (SAC), the supervisory arm<\/a> of the Iranian Parliament, appointed Mehrdad Bazrpash as its new head in late July. SAC, which oversees government spending, is a weak institution<\/a> and Parliament has played a minimal role in supervising its internal workings.  However, despite SAC\u2019s daunting challenges and deficiencies, Bazrpash has promised to fix Iran\u2019s financial problems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bazrpash blames President<\/a> Hassan Rouhani for Iran\u2019s economic woes and for pushing the country  toward a recession. Bazrpash believes the impact of US sanctions have been insignificant when compared to the economic woes caused by Rouhani\u2019s mismanagement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Months before Bazrpash\u2019s appointment,  SAC discovered a gap in Iran\u2019s financial records as  $4.8 billion<\/a> was missing from the state budget. SAC highlighted that Rouhani had allocated $31.4 billion to import goods in 2018, however,  only $26.6 billion of imported goods were accounted for.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rouhani\u2019s officials have insisted that no money<\/a> is unaccounted for,  but SAC\u2019s annual report issued in April and submitted to Rouhani<\/a> calls for a review of  his financial policies. Bazrpash is close to Iran\u2019s former hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. His appointment suggests a compromise  between the pro-Ahmadinejad factions in Parliament and the Speaker of the Parliament Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf. Ahmadinejad<\/a> and Qalibaf<\/a> both face corruption charges. It is believed that Ahmadinejad mentored Bazrpash, and Qalibaf has called on him  to take on a more active role as SAC\u2019s head.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bazrpash has claimed  that he will fight corruption even though he faces some serious corruption charges himself. He has dismissed the charges, arguing that they are  political attacks against him. However, records indicate that he may possess fake degrees, lied on his resume, lacks adequate qualifications, paid himself an inflated salary, and illegally sold land. In addition, it is believed that he received a free 10-storey building as a favor when he worked at Iran\u2019s auto manufacturing company SAIPA.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bazrpash was previously dismissed from government posts  on charges of false documentation, illegally seizing land, and receiving master\u2019s and PhD degrees by pressuring university chancellors. The Organization for Transparency and Justice Watch<\/a> in Iran questions his qualifications.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To deflect attention from these charges, Bazrpash has waged an anti-Rouhani campaign.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bazrpash says Rouhani secretly handed out 260,000 billion tomans to special interest groups in the form of subsidies. Some of Rouhani\u2019s officials are believed to receive 53 million tomans per month in the form of salaries, which is 10 times greater than the average government salary. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bazrpash has accused the Rouhani government of increasing unemployment and underemployment levels in Iran, and  breaking the Guinness World Record for inefficiency. He has promised to protect workers, and those who are retired. In addition, he has vowed to reverse Iran\u2019s scientific, artistic, and educational decline under Rouhani.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By heading SAC, there is a possibility that Bazrpash could assume  powerful position<\/a>s in the future  including the presidency. He is no stranger to election campaigns. At SAIPA, he bankrolled Ahmadinejad\u2019s presidential re-election campaign in 2009.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Clearly, Bazrpash is raising his public profile before Iran\u2019s presidential race next year by insisting that the country cannot run as it did in the old days, and that it needs managerial change. He has said  that the inflation rate and liquidity levels must be controlled. In the past year in Iran, the price of fruits increased by 36 percent, rice by 27 percent, fresh vegetables by 54 percent, apples by 70 percent, and tomatoes by 127 percent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some critics say that Bazrpash is only 39 years old, and jumps from one job to the next.  Previously, he managed  the hardline Vatan-e Emrooz newspaper, and before this, served as a deputy at the Cooperative Organization of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). He has also worked for the IRGC Khatam al Anbiya<\/a>, a construction and investment conglomerate, but boasts having research experience at Iran\u2019s prestigious Sharif University.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2012, Bazrpash  won a seat in Parliament , and received enough parliamentary votes to become  the presiding parliamentary board\u2019s secretary, and later on  a member of the special commission supervising Iran\u2019s nuclear deal. He called Rouhani\u2019s nuclear deal with world powers a \u201cnuclear holocaust.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2016, Bazrpash lost a bid  for re-election. His latest appointment to SAC suggests that he still enjoys support from powerful groups inside Iran, even though his past could serve as an obstacle for him to run in Iran\u2019s presidential race.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Iran\u2019s Supreme Audit Court (SAC), the supervisory arm of the Iranian Parliament, appointed Mehrdad Bazrpash as its new head in late July. SAC, which oversees government spending, is a weak institution and Parliament has played a minimal role in supervising its internal workings. However, despite SAC\u2019s daunting challenges and deficiencies, Bazrpash has promised to fix Iran\u2019s financial problems.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":8213,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[5641,153,495,2334],"class_list":["post-8212","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-reports","tag-bazprash","tag-court","tag-supreme","tag-supreme-court"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8212","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8212"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8212\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8214,"href":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8212\/revisions\/8214"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8213"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8212"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8212"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8212"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}