“We have been warning the Minister of Agricultural for three years, and we have noted that there is widespread corruption in the guaranteed wheat purchasing system,” said the head of the Iranian Food Industry Association, who said that speculators mixed waste with wheat and wheat.
Seyyed Mohammad Reza Mortazavi, head of the Association of Iranian Food Industries Associations, said: “We have been warning the Minister of Agricultural for three years and we have noted that there is widespread corruption in the guaranteed purchase system of wheat, but no attention is paid.”
He said that speculators are mixing waste with wheat and delivering it to the government, such as sand and wheat, and pointing out: According to our surveys, 700,000 tons of waste are mixed with wheat each year and sold to the government. That means around 1000 billion tomans annually goes out of the budget and goes into special pockets.
“Unfortunately, there is a mafia and widespread corruption in the system of guaranteed purchases of wheat, which we have repeatedly warned the Minister of Agricultural , but the answer we heard was that” it is OK to go to the farmer’s pockets, “he said. “While we are convinced that these actions are not the work of the farmer, it is the work of speculators who buy wheat from the farmer and sell it to the government, and some executives are also at work.
He said: By law, in the process of guaranteeing the purchase of wheat to avoid scrap and sand delivery along with wheat, they should use standard meshes but authorities should cover non-standard mesh to cover their own infringement instead of using standard mesh that does not pass through waste and sand are used in wheat shopping centers.
“Unfortunately, these people want to end this corruption in the name of others,” he said. At a meeting last year, the same issue was raised when a representative of the Ministry of Agriculture uttered an ugly statement that was met with sharp reaction from all members.
Mortazavi noted: In the past three years, both the Minister of Health and the head of the National Standards Organization have warned about this and its negative impact on public health, but unfortunately the Minister of Agriculture has not paid any attention to them.
The chairman of the flour Association stated that wheat entering the flour mills averages 5% junk and waste, stating: In one instance, the head of one of the supervisors visited a flour factory and personally saw that the wheat contained 5% junk and waste.