More Than Half of Parliamentary Questions Left Unanswered

Click to read the article in Turkish

Republican People's Party (CHP) Antep MP Bayram Yılmazkaya has shared the statistics on Parliamentary questions addressed to 16 ministers and one vice president within the current term of the Parliament.

Accordingly, a total of 21,504 Parliamentary questions have been submitted to the Parliament in the 27th term so far.

While 11,663 Parliamentary questions have been left unanswered, 7,658 Parliamentary questions have not been answered in due time.

The number of Parliamentary questions answered in due time is only 1,700.

'Answers passed off with mocking answers'

Commenting on these figures, CHP Antep MP Yılmazkaya has said, "Though 1,493 Parliamentary questions have been addressed by the MPs to the Ministry of Health in the 27th Term, the Minister of Health has answered only 14 of these questions within due time."

Referring to the behavior of the ministries as "unserious and undisciplined", Yılmazkaya has underlined that "the questions answered by the ministries in due time were passed off with mocking answers."

"I would like to especially underline that those questions not answered within due time, in fact, mean that they have not been answered at all", he has indicated further and raised concerns over the gradually decreasing number of Parliamentary questions responded by their addressees:

"In order to bring up the problems faced by the citizens in their provinces and develop solutions for them, MPs are submitting written Parliamentary questions to ministries so that they can find a solution.

"With the adoption of the Presidential Government System, the ministers appointed from outside [the Parliament] are disconnected from the Parliament and society. For that reason, the rates of answered Parliamentary questions have fallen drastically." (AS/SD)