CHP leader thanks mayors over transparency, savings
İZMİR
The main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu on Nov. 22 has conveyed his gratitude towards the party’s mayors, thanking them from preventing “squandering” and being transparent.
“You showed the whole country how a municipality can be governed with justice and law by especially, refraining from squandering,” Kılıçdaroğlu said, addressing the CHP mayors.
The CHP chief’s remarks came during a speech at a meeting with his party’s mayors in the Aegean province of İzmir.
He also thanked the mayors for saving budgetary money and avoiding extravagant spending, saying both elements will increase the officials’ trustworthiness among the public.
“A plain mayoralty is a trustful one,” he said.
The savings in Ankara and Istanbul Metropolitan Municipalities has led to providing more service to the citizens, according to Kılıçdaroğlu.
“The Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality will provide scholarships to 30,000 impoverished college students. It amounts to 96 million [Turkish] Liras [about $17 million]. How did they find this money? By preventing squandering,” he said.
“We prevent squandering and use the savings for the public,” he added.
Regarding the capital’s municipality, the CHP leader conveyed that Ankara Mayor Mansur Yavaş’s savings policies led to a budget surplus in seven months.
“Think about the waste of 25 years, the money spent… The capital was detracted from being a capital and had almost become a town,” he said.
According to a booklet prepared by Ankara Metropolitan Municipality, in the first 200 days of Yavaş’s mayoralty, the local administration had a budgetary surplus of over 387 million liras (nearly $68 million).
The booklet also reveals that Yavaş has taken over a short-term debt of over 3.4 billion liras from the old administration and paid more than 305 million liras of this debt.
Apart from the savings, the live broadcast of city council meetings of the CHP online has opened a new chapter in the principle of transparency, according to Kılıçdaroğlu.
The public’s online access to city council meetings are a first in Turkey, Kılıçdaroğlu said.
“Until this day, there was no concept of transparency [in local governments],” he said.
