“Under the table”, “tea money”, “share of children” and “cookies” are expressions that are used by Iran’s government offices for “bribery.”
In the mullahs’ system, one of the most corrupt in the world, corruption and bribery is one of the main tools of its officials to loot and collect money and wealth from the people in quid pro quo for their demands from the government.
Before the mullahs took the power in Iran, bribery was considered a shameful and immoral act, and only a few were doing it in secrecy, and if one day their secret was revealed, they would be severely punished and could no longer continue their life as a normal person and were faced with the hatred of the people and became infamous. But now it has become part of a series of ordinary and extraordinarily ordinary acts.
In this way, many officials have acquired great wealth for themselves and their children and live the rest of their lives with complete well-being and affluence.
How the amount of bribe is determined for each task is a complex one in which several factors play. The degree of flexibility and bargaining power of the sides of the task. The financial situation of the bribe-giver and the bribe-taker, as well as the greed, need and risk-taking of the bribe-giver and the bribe-taker can be among the factors determining the sum of each bribe.
Major bribery figures reach up to one billion tomans. Contracts that are concluded for various services and projects or the purchase of goods required by the bureaucracy, and the payment of bribes affects the finalization of these contracts and on a large scale can lead to increased costs and lead to national losses and damages.
The use of valid foreign currencies such as the dollar and the euro are also common in the method of paying bribes in cash.
Among non-cash bribes, the use of gold coins (Bahar Azadi or Imami coins) is the most common method of paying bribes, and its amount starts from one gold coin and can reach 25 coins.
But in the non-cash method, bribery covers a wide range of items. In this method, anything from buying home appliances such as refrigerators to naming plots of land, donating sheep, buying an iPhone mobile phone, handmade carpets, and spices, and saffron, are common among non-cash bribes for advancing work in various departments and agencies.
Lack of social justice and unfair distribution of wealth is one of the psychological causes of bribery, which has become an unreachable desire.
To the extent that the health, integrity, and systemic and public oversight of the administrative hierarchy are reduced, and unhealthiness prevails, and the phenomenon of bribery is not dealt with decisively and legally, the possibility of bribery spreading to lower levels will be much greater.
Also, when a government pays no attention to development and progress of the country, we will automatically see a serious evasion of the law, and bribery will spread dramatically. So, the government in Iran has reached a stage that nothing can be achieved without lies.
A government that violates morality will destroy the country’s social and economic health. Social and economic inequalities create the phenomenon of welfare and consumerism in higher classes which are mostly the government officials and their relatives. With the rise of consumerism, when spending exceeds one’s income, so he/she is forced to solve his/her problems in any way.
On the other hand, when we see a person with mediation and brokerage passes one hundred years overnight without any education which in Iran is the mirror of all the officials and a professional who has worked hard for years and is still in financial trouble, this system automatically encourages people to resort to bribery.
