Iran’s Ministry of Cooperatives, Labor and Social Welfare has fired the social security chief, days after he severely hurt national feelings with his contentious claims about a need to sell two Persian Gulf islands due to economic woes.
The Ministry’s PR department said in a statement Sajjad Padam, the director-general of the department of social insurances, was dismissed from office because of his “controversial and untrue statements” regarding the government’s inability to pay retirees’ salaries.
Padam had claimed, “We will soon be forced to sell the islands of Qeshm and Kish and Khuzestan so that we can pay the salaries of retirees.”
His comments sparked widespread anger and criticism in the country.
Reacting to the statements, the spokesman for the Iranian administration, Ali Bahadori Jahromi, criticized the statement and said, “We will be proud to sacrifice our lives for every inch of the Iranian soil. Anyone who has an economic problem or any other issue should spend from his own pocket to solve it.”
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