Speakers were Saadet Party Deputy Chairman Prof. Dr. Sabri Tekir, Dr. Ertan Yülek and Hasan Basri Aktan. In the conference, which was restarted after a break due to the pandemic, "What Does the 2023 Budget Say?" title was discussed. The conference held at the ESAM Headquarters Conference Hall was held with intense participation.
The traditional Wednesday Conferences of the Center for Economic and Social Research (ESAM) have started. The first topic of the conferences, which have become traditional, is “What Does the 2023 Budget Say?” The speakers were the Deputy Chairman of the Saadet Party Prof. Dr. Sabri Tekir, Dr. Ertan Yülek and Hasan Basri Aktan. In the conference, which was restarted after a break due to the pandemic, "What Does the 2023 Budget Say?" title was discussed. The conference held at the ESAM Headquarters Conference Hall was held with intense participation.
“TREASURE GUARANTEED PROJECTS BECOME BURDEN FOR THE BUDGET”
Saadet Party Deputy Chairman and former Minister of State Prof. Dr. Sabri Tekir, Parliament Plan Budget Former Commission President Dr. Ertan Yülek and former Undersecretary of the Ministry of Finance Hasan Basri Aktan gave speeches on “What Does the 2023 Budget Say?” Hasan Basri Aktan, who made the first speech, stated that the Central Bank (TCMB), Banks Association and Banking Regulation and Supervision Agency (BDDK) put pressure on the banking and finance sector by imposing a 200-item restriction. Stating that the system does not function properly because of this, Aktan drew attention to the investments made and said, “Investments in the public sector are extremely important. In the past, meetings were held under the chairmanship of the Prime Minister of the High Planning Council and discussed at length. Traditionally at least 10-14 percent of the budget would have been investment appropriations. It has dropped to 7 percent this year because the allocation of resources to investments is limited. There are additional burdens on the budget such as public-private cooperation projects, projects with Treasury guarantee, public hospitals, highways and bridges. The main problem is priorities in these projects to determine correctly, to establish the right relationship between the project and the potential like when and how they should be done. The project should determine the costs and not cause loss and leakage.”
“DUE TO THESE RISES, INFLATION CAN NEVER BE 78 PERCENT”
Sabri Tekir, Deputy Chairman of the Saadet Party and former Minister of State, stated that there should be stability in the country for the successful implementation of the budgets, and that price stability should be found in this way, adding: “257 percent for diesel, 238 percent for gasoline, 190 percent for kitchen tube, 180 percent for bread, 175 percent for transportation services, 162 percent for auto gas, 340 percent for sugar, 300 percent for natural gas, 260 percent for electricity, and 195 percent for meat and dairy products hike is made. Under these conditions, when the hikes in other products are included, logically, inflation would never be 78 percent. As a result, we are faced with this table,” he said. Pointing out that the amount paid to interest from the budget has increased rapidly since 2012, Tekir added, “When we come to August of 2022, we have a debt of 1 trillion 676 billion Turkish Liras (TL). Our interest debt is 2 trillion 400 billion TL. In other words, we are faced with a picture of twice the previous main money. This is the pincer with which we are caught.”
“TURKEY HAS A TERRIBLE INCOME INEQUALITY”
Making a short speech in the last part of the conference, Dr. Ertan Yülek underlined that the projects carried out in public-private cooperation create a burden on the citizens as they cannot meet their own financing. Yülek noted: “There is a Guinea curve. According to this curve, a calculation is made by dividing the society and incomes into 20 percent parts. Energy Market Regulatory Authority (EPDK) publishes a bulletin every month. According to this bulletin, there are 130 million deposits in Turkey. The monetary total of this is 2,5 trillion TL. The number of people in banks with deposits over 10 million is 570,000. According to these calculations, in short, 60-70 thousand families own 55 percent of Turkey's monetary wealth. This is a disgrace. Now, when this Currency Protected Deposit (KKM) was first released, a friend came to me. I deposited 300,000 TL, I got 388,000 TL a month later, he said. In other words, he made a monthly profit of 30 percent and an annual profit of 20 percent. With these methods, 50 percent of the money taken from 84 million people is given to the 60-70 thousand families we mentioned,” he said.