Saadet Party Samsun Deputy Mehmet Karaman, who attended the January Council Meeting of the Saadet Party Trabzon Provincial Presidency, made evaluations about the local elections.
Mehmet Karaman said that the municipalities, which were taken over from Milli Görüş mayors in a debt-free, worry-free and well-functioning state, are now sinking into a debt mire.
"For example, Konya. Konya, which was won by the AK Party in 2004, is today the 4th most indebted municipality in Turkey. The debt of Konya Metropolitan Municipality, which was debt-free and even profitable 20 years ago, has exceeded 500 million dollars today. It is no different in Istanbul. The total debt of the municipality increased to 1.8 billion Euros during the AK Party period, and to 2.8 billion Euros during the CHP period. That is 92 billion liras. This figure is more than the budget of 7 ministries in the 2024 budget today. The debt of Kayseri Metropolitan Municipality is over 1 trillion. What about Trabzon? Unfortunately, it is no different from Turkey in general. The debt of Trabzon Metropolitan Municipality has exceeded 500 million lira. There is almost no debt-free municipality in Turkey. There is no mistake in the simile, they owe a debt to the flying bird," Karaman said.
“WE HAVE TRANSFERRED KENDIRLI WITHOUT DEBTS”
Emphasizing that the first debt-free municipality is also a Milli Görüş municipality, Karaman said, "A recent example is that in the 2014 elections, Kendirli Mayor Salih Uzun handed over the debt-free municipality to AK Party's Alaettin Serdar, who won the election, with a ceremony. Social municipality studies again became widespread with National Vision municipalities. As Saadet Party, we know the importance of material and spiritual development and that the first stage of this is local government work. We know that a fair sharing is possible with justice in management. We know that on-site production and employment are indispensable for livable cities. As Saadet Party, our goal is to make the 5-star municipality approach dominant in the local area again after 30 years."
“IS THE GOOD THINGS WERE DONE?”
Drawing attention to irregularities and public harm in tenders, Karaman said following words:
"Has nothing good ever been done? Yes it was done. We appreciate the services provided. High-speed trains, highways, airports, tunnels, bridges, hospitals... I'm glad it was done. So, how was it done, how is it done? With a practice called build-operate-transfer, which in theory should take on the financial burden of the public, in a strange way it exploits public resources and exploits the resources of the nation, like a growing black hole in our country. In this system, these so-called mega projects, which the state could have cost 1, but tendered for 3 just to keep that 1 out of its pocket, cost the state and the nation 5 because of this ignorance. Who is profitable now?"
Saadet Party Trabzon Provincial Chairman Şakir Şahintaş and Saadet Party Trabzon Metropolitan Municipality Mayor candidate Master Architect Recep Yakuphan also spoke at the meeting.