‘Budget proposal disregards disadvantaged groups in Turkey’

* Photo & news: JinNews

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The 2021 Central Government Budget Proposal is currently being discussed at the Parliamentary Planning and Budget Commission.

Amid these ongoing talks and discussions, both the opposition parties and some women's organizations have been raising objections against it, saying that the proposed budget does not foresee allocation of money for matters related to women and it is unequal.

Filiz Kerestecioğlu, the Ankara MP of the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP), is among the deputies who participate in budget discussions. She says that the debates in question are not participatory or inclusive.

'Demands of women's organizations hindered'

"For a long time, the government has been siding with the capital on issues including the unemployment fund. These are the principles of capitalism, but we have been experiencing this more intensely now," she protests, noting that "the budget talks are entirely closed to dialogue and negotiation."

According to Kerestecioğlu, "Budget talks are really not participatory or transparent. The thoughts or opinions of civil society organizations, unions or women's organizations are not asked in any way at all. Women's organizations expressed some demands, but they have been hindered, as is the case every year. This year, the pandemic has been used as an excuse."

Criticizing the proposed budget over its failure to allocate money for matters related to women, Kerestecioğlu says, "There will be a single Violence Prevention and Monitoring Center (ŞÖNİM) in entire İstanbul. Similarly, the number of shelters in a country where over 40 million women live can increase from 150 from 165 at most until 2023."

Referring to the number of care and rehabilitation centers for the persons with disabilities, Filiz Kerestecioğlu protests that this number can be increased from 104 to 120 at most in this period.

'Nearly 2 million child workers not in budget'

"While the government is supposed to provide funds for workers, women, children, people with disabilities and the elderly, the picture that we have is pathetic," the MP notes further and briefly adds:

"According to the figures of the Turkish Statistical Institute (TurkStat), the number of child workers is around 720 thousand while the ones working in the field say that this number is nearly 2 million.

"Meanwhile, we lost 1,494 workers in nine months. This is a horrible number. In addition to this, we see that workers are faced with all types of obstacles to their rights. 17 strikes have been postponed since 2003.

"The miners coming from Ermenek are attacked. The union members struggling against the usurpation of their rights to compensation at the gates of the Parliament were attacked two-three days ago and all these are done at the pretext of the pandemic. The regime, which is authoritarian in every sense of the term, is attempted to be made permanent with its economics."

What is in the budget proposal?

The vice president said that the government will allocate "the lion's share" of the budget – fully 15 percent – to education with 211.4 billion Turkish lira (26.5 billion US dollars).

Budget expenditures were projected at 1.346 trillion liras ($169.6 billion). Also, non-interest expenses come to 1.166 trillion liras ($147 billion).

Budget revenues were projected at 1.101 billion liras ($138.8 million) and tax revenues at 922.7 billion liras ($116.3 billion). The budget deficit for next year was predicted at 245 billion liras (nearly $31 billion).

The budget for 2021 will be the 19th budget of the ruling Justice and Development (AK) Party government, which first came to power in fall 2002. (EMK/SD)