TOBB business group to talk to new gov’t on Erdoğan’s job-creation plan

“Mr. President said he has given an order to civil servants,” said Rifat Hisarcıklıoğlu, while responding to a question on the sidelines of the general assembly of the group in Ankara on May 11. 

“In this framework, we will come together with the government that will be founded,” he said. 

Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Dauvtoğlu has announced he will resign amid efforts to replace him at a May 22 party congress. 

Erdoğan called on Turkey’s business leaders to hire one extra employee in order to help dramatically cut unemployment.

 “If each member here hires one more person, we can create 1.5 million new jobs for unemployed people,” Erdoğan said in a speech on May 8, addressing TOBB at the Labor Health and Safety Conference in Istanbul. 

“Will you go bankrupt if you hire one more person? No, you will have a bumper business when you do this. Money stays in the world behind us when we die. People should use their money to open employment opportunities to others,” he said.

Hisarcıklıoğlu criticized banks in his speech, saying they should abandon their remorselessness in access to financing. 

“I’m calling on the banks; leave this remorselessness behind, don’t forget that we are in the same boat,” he said, as he stressed that the businesses should be saved from being dependent on banks. 

“You exist if the ones in this hall exist,” Hisarcıklıoğlu said, while adding that he wanted to see the Turkish agriculture sector become a brand through its integration into the world. 

Arguing that the tax system should distinguish those who do their job properly from those who do not, Hisarcıklıoğlu said entrepreneurs must do their business in accordance with the law just like everybody else.

“Entrepreneurs should work properly and should be held accountable when they aren’t [working properly]. We don’t want privileges here. Won’t there be a price for making the entrepreneur’s life unjustly miserable? There should be a price for causing us loss with wrong and arbitrary controls just like the price we pay when we make mistakes in our business lives. Don’t leave our entrepreneurs at the mercy of the bureaucracy and auditors,” he said.