From: babak@cpre1.ee.iastate.edu (Babak Sehari)
Subject: Re: How the government can help.
Organization: Iowa State University of Science and Technology, Ames, Iowa.
Date: Wed, 22 Jul 1992 03:35:45 GMT

In <l6ortqINN7dq@spim.mips.com> fekr@mips.com (Fekr Nevisandeh) writes:


>Posted for Masoud, masoud@hicomb.hi.com

>===============================================================================

>I like to make some comments on the corruption in Iran.  My opionions
>in no way blame the government of Iran.

>sehari@iastate.edu (Babak Sehari) writes:

>>My first suggestion is that the government should buy the factories
>>and other needed facilities, then sell it to the public through sale
>>of stock.  That is, for example, government should buy a gas power generation
>>station say for $100,000 and then calculate it's value in Rail using free
>>market exchange rate. that is say 14,000,000 "Toman" then issue 1,000,000
>>stock of $28 each (book value to price of 2, which is considered to be
>>very good rate) and sell it to people.  Now, this power station should be
>>run by the stock holders.  The stock holders should hire the engineers and
>>the staff to run this company.  This should be done by election of a CEO in
>>stock holder meeting of each month.  This company then sells the electricity
>>to public utility with say %5 profit and then distribute the income among it's
>>share holders.  At the same time, government have now $200,000 to invest in
>>another company which is needed for the country. Say, this time the government
>>buys another company and continues the same way.  This should utilized the
>>money in people's hand toward the construction of the country, as well as
>>creating another source of income for the people.

>sehari@iastate.edu (Babak Sehari) writes again:

>>    However, the same media, which pictures me and you as terrorist over here,
>>sold us the picture of ourselves to even us as corrupt people.  Yes, there are
>>corruption I do not deny it; however, it's extend is not as deep as they
>>picture it to be. Yes, if you talk about turkey I agree with you.  The reason
>>there is also unreasonably low wages of Turkish government employees.  These,
>>people have to feed their kids, thats why they are forced to do things that
>>they themselves do not like.  In Iran even with low wages people have their
>>own ethics, and everyone is policing him or herself.  That's why the extend
>>of corruption is much less in Iran than it should be in similar situation on
>>other countries.

>No argument on the attitude of U.S. media towards Iranians, but as much as I 
>hate to disagree, the extend of corruption in Iran is deep.  

Well, I can say at least this much that, in my own experience the corruption
was not that wild spread.  Off course, this is my own experience.  When I look
back, I always remember hard working people, being my teachers, postman, 
ministry of Education, where I used to go to get my degree and other 
certificates, ministry of health, where my mother used to work, and other
governmental agencies which our relatives used to work, since I could remember.
My relatives, had and are working in many levels of governmental agencies,
high and low.  Then again your experience might have been different.

I had an uncle who used to think exactly like you.  He was a pessimist.
I remember, once he got a traffic ticket for passing the red light; and he
tried to bribe the policeman in order to not to get the traffic ticket.
I, also, remember the police man arrested him and we have to put 20,000 toman
bands for his release.  Finally, the judge sentence him to one week in jail
and pay 5000 toman in fines as well. -:)

I also remember that when we were in high school, some used to say the 
teacher favor some students for this and that reason, and if you want to get 
good grade you should pay to the teacher!  I never paid any money to anybody,
but I always did good on my tests.  I was not alone, all of us who used to 
study together used to do good, while our class football team was always 
complaining!  I do not know, what was your individual experience?  Did you
ever pay to a teachers to pass?  I even do not know of anybody who
did such a thing.

However, having said that; I do not claim that there has not been even one 
single person who was not corrupt. I am sure there were and there are still.
Even though, I should say that the level of it was even less than it's level
in the US.  For example, this city that I live in; seems more like Mafia
city.  Everybody, in our school back each other up, other wise he or she might
loose his or her job.  So, there is no disagreement in this school; everybody
is hat in hand in the end of the month waiting for the god father to hand them
their pay checks. -:)  It looks like old Soviet Union, everybody is following
the "central committee's" guide lines.  Poor taxpayers, who do not know, their
tax money are being wasted, so bad.  

Nevertheless, it is not constructive to generalize.  By generalization you
discredit all the honest ones as well.  So, if you see corruption make a big
fuss out of it.  Point your finger to the specific person, who is doing that.
Off course no pain, no gain.  If you and me are not willing to stand up to
corruption, nobody else will do it for us.  Hey if you do not clean your room,
do not expect someone else to clean it for you.

>Babak Khan, what have been your recent dealings with any officials in any 
>governmental agencies in Iran?  Some of those officials, whether he is an office
>clerk or the head of the department, have become so corrupted that they ignore
>other authorities in their own organizations and impose their own rules on others
>with complete disregard to the laws of the country.  They have no fear of getting
>caught casue they usually don't get caught.  They force business men to pay them 
>bribes, and unless they don't pay, the business men will have greater financial 
>losses.  And the sad thing is that those officials think that the bribery is their 
>Hagh (their belonging as if earned).  What do innocent people do to cope with that?
>Some pay those bastards while others try to fight them.  Those who pay contribute 
>in extending the corruption to higher levels.  We (Iranians) are responsible for 
>our own behavior and, therefore, the corruption in Iran.  It is not the 
>responsibility of the US media.

As I mentioned before, the person who pays the bribe or accepts to pay the 
bribe is as much guilty as the person who receives it.  What I am saying
is this:  It is every citizen's moral duty to stand for what is right.  Say
for example, you see a girl being raped in the street, if you do not call the
police and ask for help, you are as much guilty as the criminal himself.
The businessman should not pay a penny, "or a Rial".  He at that point looks
like a soldier who is protecting the country.  As well as, we expect that the
soldier not to let enemy to come in, even if he looses his life, the same is 
true for any individual citizen should  not to let the society to be destroyed.

>You also suggested the implementation of a U.S. like stock market in Iran where 
>people can invest in publicly owned companies.  I am no expert in this area 
>but I do know that the implementation of such market requires the presence of 
>a commission to monitor the activities of key participants.  This committee 
>should not be corrupted.  This type of market provides the means for the 
>corrupted indivduals to easily take advantage of unaware people.  Examples are
>Mike Milken, Ivan Boskey, S&L's of the U.S. market.  Such individuals must be
>stoped and to do so we would need laws and regulations to force those barbarians
>to behave.  We can't afford some jerk to set his own rules and impose them on
>us.  People must have adequate education to be able to distinguish between good 
>and evil.  Unfortunetly, we don't have the broad education across the country 
>and the understanding of the many issues surrounding such market so that everyone 
>can benefit from this system.  We would be eaten alive by corruption.  You may 
>suggest something like a mutual fund by which people with insufficient knowledge 
>of the market can participate and make money.  The idea of mutual funds is not 
>new to Iranians in Iran.  Many people (mostly retired and widowed) have handed 
>their hard earned cash assets to some morally/socially/religiously respected 
>individuals who at the end vanished with all the money.  Those thieves may only 
>spend a few years in jail but at the end they get out of their sentense by bribing 
>some officials.

There are two different issues in here.  Are you suggesting that we can not
find 10 people to work at SEC type organization in Iran, who are not corrupt?!
I tend to disagree with you. In a country that many people do not touch the 
money which has been collected through immortal ways "Haram", surely we can find
10 people who oversee this transaction.  The same way they oversee the the
transaction of the houses, cars and other property in the country, "SAPT".  

Other issue is that you should understand that stock market is not like 
the interest you get from the bank.  If you mis-manage your investment, or say
something happens, you might loose your investment, all of it.  Say, the
share holders elect an incompetent person to manage the company, and company
goes under.  Or due to natural disaster, like earthquake or flood, the factory
gets damaged.  The same thing might have happened to those individuals you 
mentioned.  The guy builds a house to sell, suddenly there is earthquake, or
flood and he looses all the original capital.  Now, what would you do with
this person?!  From one hand he did not do any mistake, on the other hand 
people want their money back!

Off course, there are always the crooks, they had been trough out the history,
and there will be in future years to come.  My objective, here is not to make
a utopian, my objective here is to make a workable plan to better the lives of 
the people, whom I love and respect from bottom of my hart.

>Sorry for being negative.

It's alright, but remember this we can not solve any problem with a negative
attitude.

>Masoud.
>masoud@hicomb.hi.com

                              With highest regards,
                                   Babak   Sehari.
                           
P.S.  I do not have all the answers.

Newsgroups: soc.culture.iranian