Iran National Steel Industrial Group’s workers will receive their delayed payments by the end of the current fiscal year (March 20), Majlis representative of Khuzestan Province’s Ahvaz City, Ali Sari, said.
“This steel complex has recently been sold by a bank to someone who lacks [financial] capability and the workers’ problems have persisted due to this wrong decision,” Sari was quoted as saying by Mehr News Agency.
INSIG’s 4,000 workers are currently on strike and have staged several protests in the city of Ahvaz this year.
“They protest because they have not received their wages for three months and their insurance premiums are not being paid to the Social Security Organization,” the MP added.
The steel complex was originally owned by Amir Mansour Aria, alias Mahafarid Amir Khosravi, who was executed on charges of embezzlement in 2011. His confiscated assets were subsequently transferred to the state-owned Bank Melli and finally sold to Abdolreza Mousavi last November, ILNA reported.
Mousavi is also the owner of Zagros Airlines and Esteghlal Ahvaz Football Club, as well as Kish Island’s Dariush Grand Hotel and Dolphin Park.
INSIG’s current volume of debt and losses is not known, as the company’s financial statements are not available.
INSIG Managing Director Hamid Mahmoudi, however, put the figure at 10 trillion rials ($222.2 million) in March 2017.
The company has struggled to increase production this year, according to the latest statistics released by Iranian Mines and Mining Industries Development and Renovation Organization.
INSIG produced 42,573 tons of semi-finished steel during the first 10 months of the current fiscal year (March 21-Jan. 20), registering a 49% decline compared with last year’s corresponding period.
The company produced 64,699 and 7,187 tons of rebar and pipe during the same period, down 60% and 40% respectively year-on-year. It only recorded growth in beam output (20% to 37,920 tons).
