A London-based human rights organization, which focuses on the Middle East has found that the data for hundreds of Iranian dams is missing.
Small Media found that out of over 1,000 dams listed on the Iranian Energy Ministry’s online database, only about 100 had complete profiles. This means that for hundreds of other dams across Iran, it is unclear who is in charge of them, whether they are still active, and their start and end dates.
The dates in particular are essential to determining how cost-effective the dams are.
The report wrote: “Without having access to the complete data, it is hard to hold governmental and local institutions accountable for the potential destructive economic, social, and environmental costs of dam building for the country.”
This stunning lack of transparency on behalf of the Iranian Regime only becomes stranger when you learn about the large amount of money that they have supposedly invested into the construction of dams- more than any other field except petrochemical, according to some estimates.
Indeed, it is estimated that there have been 600 dams built in Iran over the past 30 years, and during the presidency of Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani (1989-1997) a new dam was reportedly opened every 45 days.
Sources could not confirm whether these severe gaps in data was caused by mismanagement, corruption, or both.
There is, however, one big reason for the lack of transparency: links to terrorism.
One of the major stakeholders in the dam building business is Khatam al-Anbiya Construction Company (KAA), a company controlled by the Iranian Regime’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) which has linked to terrorist groups across the world and recently been sanctioned by the US for terrorism.
The IRGC, which is answerable only to the Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, actually controls the vast majority of the Iranian economy and often uses its political sway and intelligence resources to secure the biggest financial deals for itself. No one is allowed to question them.
So have these dams been decommissioned? Have the savings been funnelled into the IRGC’s pocket? What is the IRGC doing with these dams?
While KAA is the most lucrative of the IRGC firms, they have their stranglehold across all sectors of the economy and plough their profits into terrorism and the destabilisation of the Middle East (like continuing the Syrian Civil War far beyond its natural end). They have reaped the financial rewards of the 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and six world powers, rather than the ordinary Iranians.
It is worth noting that KAA was on the United Nations’ sanctions list for its support of Iran’s nuclear program. In the aftermath of the nuclear deal, the European Union has agreed to lift sanctions against the company in 2024 but the US has kept KAA and its subsidiaries on their blacklist.
Source » ncr-iran