Accused of Forgery and Theft Became Minister of Roads
Accused of forgery and theft became Minister of Roads in a government and parliament that continue in their usual ways. Ghalibaf talks about new governance, yet the system remains rooted in connections and clique politics. The suggestion of Mehrdad Bazrpash sitting in the former seat of Rostam Ghasemi comes while there were previous whispers of him sitting in the Ministry of Industry, Mines, and Trade as well. Thus, he has been given the title of a man for all ministries.
Mohammad Taheri, an economic journalist, wrote that in this dirty situation, a clean choice could have been made to take a small step toward restoring public trust. Introducing Mehrdad Bazrpash for the Ministry of Roads and Urban Development is a wrong and costly choice. He is neither a specialist in this field, nor a genius, nor well-reputed. He has no experience in this field, and the people do not like him. Why did you choose him?
The current head of the Court of Audit owes his political life to the presidency of the Basij at Sharif University and later his closeness to Ahmadinejad. During a student protest against the death sentence of Hashem Aghajari, as the head of the student Basij at Sharif University, he said, ‘Wherever there is insult, we are present.’
Throughout all these years, he has always received a good share of the power pie, although this share has always been accompanied by many controversies. These controversies have always raised questions about his qualifications and ability to hold that specific position. However, Bazrpash has always outpaced his critics through lobbying, from being the CEO of Pars Khodro at the age of 27, and later Saipa, when some believed he was not suitable for the position in terms of experience and age, to the presidency of the Court of Audit.
Forgery Allegation
In the matter of Bazrpash’s appointment as the head of the Court of Audit, controversy over his credentials and executive background escalated to the point of public protest and open letters from figures like Naderan and Tavakoli. Yet, in the end, it was Bazrpash who won. To obtain the presidency of the Court of Audit, at least 20 years of work experience is required, whereas Bazrpash’s work experience did not even reach 17 years.
Naderan, a member of the eleventh parliament, says in this regard that he, considering his age and the periods he claimed to have worked, could not present 20 years of work experience to the parliament. Therefore, he brought a work certificate from that research institute, which I believe was unacceptable. Later, the person who signed the letter admitted in the Article 90 Commission that the document was forged.
Now, Mojtaba Tavangar, a member of parliament, deemed it necessary to list all these controversial and ambiguous records of Bazrpash in a tweet, although he specifically did not dare or did not want to mention his name, a point for which users criticized him. Tavangar wrote: ‘Review of grades and academic certificate, plagiarism in thesis, presenting a fake certificate to receive a position, open financial cases in the organization, having no expertise or experience to seize the ministry, pressure for appointing close associates, appointment without inquiry, and untold stories.’
In late November this year, in a sharp reaction to rumors about Mehrdad Bazrpash’s presence in the government cabinet, it was written that for any ministry likely to change, this everywhere man pressures the president through one of the deputies to seize that seat. Mr. Engineer, how much ability do you have that you can become both mayor and Minister of Roads, Minister of Industry, Mines, and Trade, and Minister of Welfare? My brother, why do you have such a greed for power?
Theft Allegation
It has been claimed that Bazrpash’s admission to the doctoral program was at the order of the Minister of Science, Research, and Technology and without participating in the doctoral exam, as a conversion of an overseas scholarship to a domestic one. Bazrpash’s scholarship request was sent in the last days of Ahmadinejad’s government, on July 22, 2013, and within two days, on July 24, after being reviewed by the Ministry of Science officials, it was approved. This time coincided with the month of Ramadan.
Moreover, a Twitter account, by reposting the text of Mehrdad Bazrpash’s doctoral thesis and conducting a comparative analysis, has shown that extensive sections of this thesis were copied and stolen from books, scientific articles, and newspapers of others that were published before Bazrpash’s thesis was written, and large and small excerpts from them appeared in the thesis often without any changes. Jamshid Salehi Sadeghiani, the head of the Faculty of Management and Accounting at Allameh Tabataba’i University and Bazrpash’s advisor in writing his doctoral thesis, announced in 2015 that he graduated from the doctoral program with a score of about 18.
According to Somayeh Azimi, a journalist, Habibollah Tabatabaian, in an interview, explicitly accepted the possibility of scientific theft in response to the issues raised about Bazrpash’s scientific theft and, while not absolving himself of any possibility of error and mistake, emphasized that our qualitative assessment software is faced with shortcomings due to the lack of full support for the Persian language, and such issues still have the potential to occur.
Elias Naderan, who himself is a member of the Parliament’s Budget and Planning Commission, had warned that if this issue is not addressed, he personally, along with several representatives, will complete their investigations and present the results of their research to the representatives and the people of Iran and will continue the work until a result is achieved. However, Naderan never communicated the results of his completed investigations to the public.
Earlier, the Iran newspaper reported that the financial statements of the Saipa automobile company show that Mehrdad Bazrpash, as the CEO, along with four other board members, received a reward of 600 million tomans during the years 2008 and 2009, which, considering inflation rates, was estimated to be equivalent to 1.6 billion tomans by the year 2016.
A review of his activities from the official newspaper of the judiciary shows that from 2005 to 2019, he has been a board member or founder or CEO in 10 government and private companies and institutions.