Investment agency gets ethics warning

ISTANBUL - Hürriyet Daily News

İlker Aycı speaks to businessmen in Gaziantep in this file photo. AA photo

The Prime Ministry’s Ethics Board issued a warning against İlker Aycı, the head of the Investment Agency, due to a number of ethical violations, daily Haber Türk reported yesterday.

Aycı is accused of delivering unfairly high salaries, mobbing and allocating an official car for his family member’s use after the Ethics Board’s five-month investigation, which has resulted in a warning.

Hasan Pehlivan, chief advisor to the agency, is paid 51,000 Turkish Liras in monthly gross salary, which is much over the $10,500 paid to a same level of assignment in Britain, the board said, adding that Pehlivan was also paid commission and all the payment transactions were made without Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s approval. “[The amount of] pay given to a public servant is in a character that harms people’s trust to public service and principle of fairness,” according to the board.

The activities of the Investment Agency also underwent an investigation by the Court of Accounts and the Committee of Inspection.

İlker Aycı denied any wrongdoing, noting that the advisors were granted a service fee, not a “salary.” The amount of fee is determined in comparison with wages of senior managers of a private firm such as a chief executive, he said, according to daily Haber Türk.