The story of the former Minister of Industry, Mines, and Trade is not over.
These are the final words of Seyed Reza Fatemi Amin, the Minister of Industry, Mines, and Trade in Ebrahim Raisi’s government, at the end of his defense speech in the parliament session on May 1, 2023. He intended to influence the representatives’ votes to remain a minister, but it didn’t work. The ministerial robe, which had been bestowed upon him with 205 votes, was removed, and now, only 16 months later, according to the judiciary spokesperson, he has been summoned and preliminary investigations have been conducted regarding him in the case of Debsh Tea. He is currently released on bail.
Although he did not succeed in avoiding impeachment that day and lost his ministry, with a conciliatory decree from Mr. Raisi, he was appointed as his economic manager in Astan Quds Razavi and remained as an advisor to the president on production monitoring until the end of the government. This group, over three years, created surprise after surprise.
Fatemi Amin lost the Ministry of Industry, Mines, and Trade over impeachment, primarily due to a discussion initiated by Alireza Beigi, the representative of Tabriz, who raised the issue of SUVs being given to representatives, which was more accurately an exposure. Some feared that a vote to keep the minister might be interpreted as representatives being influenced by the SUV distribution. So, they dismissed Fatemi Amin, leaving him both punished and embarrassed.
Now, less than four months after the helicopter crash in Varzeqan, and with the new government just formed, suddenly the judiciary spokesperson announces that the former Minister of Industry, Mines, and Trade and the previous president’s advisor on economic and production matters had been summoned and is now released on bail. This means that without the bail, his accusation was severe enough to warrant imprisonment. Interestingly, his accusation is not about cars or mines but related to the Debsh Tea case. Up to now, two ministers from the previous government, or the so-called ‘saddled horse’ handed over to the new president, are involved in judicial cases over financial accusations, an unprecedented event in the Islamic Republic occurring during the era of those claiming to fight corruption.
The Ministry of Industry, Mines, and Trade is a result of merging four former ministries: Industries, Mines and Metals, Heavy Industries, and Commerce. It was entrusted to Mr. Fatemi Amin, who was four years old at the time of the revolution’s victory but came along with his friends to prevent the revolution from falling into untrustworthy hands.
His first job after receiving his bachelor’s degree in electronics at the age of 23 was managing a Quranic institute named Thaqalayn, which organized Quran interpretation and eulogizing classes. With this experience, he later became the executor of the Healthy City Project in Mashhad while pursuing higher education in other fields.
The connection between an electronics degree, a Quranic institute, and the Healthy City Project remains unclear. However, he was also tasked with implementing the old vehicle renewal plan to diversify his portfolio. In 2021, Fatemi Amin became a minister in Mr. Raisi’s government, with a performance that left no choice for the parliament, which had approved his ministry with 205 votes, but to impeach him. He escaped the first impeachment but was caught and dismissed in the second one. Nonetheless, the former president’s trust in him was such that he appointed him to sit beside him in the government.
Now the question arises about his role in the Debsh Tea case. Naturally, since no final verdict has been issued, we cannot judge, and we hope he is ultimately acquitted. But if Alireza Beigi, the Tabriz representative, had not raised those issues and he had not been dismissed, would his staying have been beneficial for him, Mr. Raisi’s government, and the country? Imagine if there had been no car scandal, this would not have happened, highlighting the need to allow real representatives of the people into the parliament rather than insisting on employing individuals solely based on appearance or religious background.
Even Masoud Pezeshkian, who is now the President of Iran, was rejected by executive boards in the previous government to ensure unblemished purification. If it weren’t for the intervention of supervisory bodies at the leader’s command, he wouldn’t have reached the presidency, while now he is the President of Iran.
On this occasion, it’s worth looking at what the late Raisi said about his minister. All friends in the parliament and even those who impeached him testified to the cleanliness, anti-corruption stance, anti-rent-seeking, and anti-unhealthy relations and mafia stance of the Minister of Industry, Mines, and Trade.
The former president asked whether the Minister of Industry, Mines, and Trade’s performance should only be measured by the car issue. Does the Ministry of Industry, Mines, and Trade not have other industrial, mining, and trade sectors? Incidentally, it is because of the other sectors that a case has been formed against Mr. Fatemi Amin over Debsh Tea. In 2021, while introducing Fatemi Amin, Raisi also reminded that he had economic responsibilities in Astan Quds Razavi and had made the companies’ performance transparent.
Mr. Raisi is not here to see that the minister he praised for his courage, integrity, and cleanliness three times in the parliament—once during the vote of confidence, then during the first impeachment, and the third time during the second impeachment, asking the representatives not to oppose him just because of the car issue, but to also consider the growth indicators in production and mining—is now involved in the Debsh Tea case and is released on bail.
Perhaps if the merger of the Ministry of Industries and Commerce had not happened or if the Ministry of Commerce had been revived, he would have been drinking his daily tea and not gone after Debsh Tea. This should motivate the new president to revive the Ministry of Commerce. Raisi was so displeased with the representatives’ vote to impeach his Minister of Industry, Mines, and Trade, whom he had brought from Mashhad to Tehran, that he appointed him as an advisor to the president on production monitoring, a move similar to what Hashemi Rafsanjani did in response to the parliament’s no-confidence vote in the late Mohsen Nourbakhsh, appointing him as the economic deputy to prevent him from leaving the government. However, since the economic deputy post was not vacant in Raisi’s government, Fatemi Amin became an advisor with two missions.
1. To follow up and oversee the progress of the country’s major and leading production projects. 2. To monitor and assess the success rate and obstacles facing executive bodies to fulfill the leader’s directives regarding production growth. Let’s wait a bit to hear the case’s outcome from Mr. Jahangir, and if the second minister in Raisi’s government receives a prison sentence over financial issues, a new record will be set that bears no relation to the former president’s descriptions of his two ministers.
One wishes one of these two ministers would ask whether with three billion dollars, the entire tea cultivation and industry in the north could not have been transformed. Couldn’t this money have been allocated to the Tea Syndicate with its 100 active tea farmers? Was it really necessary to bring the economic manager of Astan Quds to Tehran and make him a minister, and was there not a single manager among the four former ministries?
We hope the judiciary spokesperson announces that, as the former president said, he is clean and transparent. But if it turns out he was as murky as Debsh Tea, for God’s sake, let’s end this facade because sometimes one wonders who these people really are.
