Truth behind Turkey’s ‘growing economy’: 12.5% of the population is on welfare
MUSTAFA MERT BİLDİRCİN
As AKP government’s policies on economy has led poverty in the country to increase, it has been revealed in the latest data shared by the Ministry of Family and Social Policies that over 10 million people – about 12.5% of the country – received aid from the state.
Data shared by the Ministry as a response to the parliamentary question of the independent lawmaker from Ankara, Aylin Nazlıaka, has reflected how poverty has actually grown in the country although the government has been praising their policies on the economy as being ‘progressive’.
A total of 32 billion 7 million 123 thousand TL was granted as state aid to 10 million 610 thousand 928 people in 2016.
While İstanbul, Urfa, and Diyarbakır were the cities where most of the aid was distributed, Bayburt, Bilecik, and Karabük were the ones with least number of people receiving the aid.
Nazlıaka emphasized that this increase in social aid, which took place under AKP governments, is not an effort to fight against poverty but is rather carried out with the purpose of ‘managing poverty.’
Also pointing out serious speculations regarding misappropriation of the funds, Nazlıaka reminded that it has also been doubted whether the funds actually reached where they were supposed to and said: “We cannot avoid the widespread suspicions and observations about the unfair methdos used in distribution of the funds... Social aid cannot be turned into a tool of political recruitment...”
On top of increase in the number of people receiving aid, over 2 million households – out of a total of 3 million 154 thousand 69 – are defined as ‘permanent receivers’, while others receive it temporarily…
Talking about it to BirGün, Professor Denizcan Kutlu said: “Social aid in Turkey, which grew in 2000’s, makes up the social aspect of the neo-liberal transformation experienced in the country. It is possible to say that these kinds of aids have by now become permenant as a political orthodoxy”...
Front-page article of BirGün published on 23 June 2017, Friday with the title of ‘They (government) have made people dependent on aid’