Ersin Tatar’s office is set to be given a 318 million TL (€10.3m) budget for 2024, as part of the north’s ‘state’ budget begin to be discussed in ‘parliament’.
The bill passed through the ‘parliamentary’ finance committee on Thursday with a majority vote, after having drawn criticism from some of the committee’s members.
Despite the bill’s passing, opposition ‘MPs’ came out vehemently against the budget and expressed their opposition to Tatar’s political direction.
Committee chairman and CTP ‘MP’ Erkut Sahali pointed out that there had been an increase in the total wage bill of contracted personnel at Tatar’s office and asked whether new personnel had been hired.
Answering questions on contracted employees, ‘finance ministry’ undersecretary Burak Soforoglu said permission had been given for a total of 71 people and that the allowance had been increased due to the increased cost of living.
He added that Tatar’s office had “made savings by curtailing periodical publications”.
Tatar’s undersecretary Okan Donangil represented his office at the committee and said there are 66 contracted personnel working at Tatar’s office, 21 of whom work for the symphony orchestra and 18 of whom are police.
He added that the office has “made serious efforts to ensure the effective functioning of the Immovable Property Commission.”
Sahali also took the opportunity to criticise Tatar for “treating the world as if it consists of only the Organisation of Turkish States (OTS)” and added that “fancy words will only get you so far.”
In addition, he said that there is “no depth or value” to Tatar’s claim to sovereignty had “no depth or value.”
He went on to describe Tatar as “an irresponsible person” and added that he “approaches the Cyprus problem with slogans.”
Fellow CTP ‘MP’ Devrim Barcin asked for clarifications regarding the increase in expenditures regarding fuel and said Tatar’s office had “failed to exhibit any budgetary discipline at a time when many people are facing serious shortages.”
Another CTP ‘MP’ Dogus Derya criticised the expenses incurred by Tatar’s foreign visits, and the fact that “no money at all was set aside for social policy.”
‘Deputy parliament speaker’ Fazilet Ozdenefe criticised Tatar for his political direction, saying he “is a person who has nothing to do with his party and should represent the integrity of the state. Is he serving as the President?”
She added, “Tatar is not fulfilling his duty in representing the Turkish Cypriot people, and he has not shared the minutes of his meeting with anyone in the parliament.”
In response, Donangil later said he would ensure the minutes would be shared with the ‘parliament’ in due course.
Ozdenefe went on to criticise Tatar for excluding ‘parliament’ from proceedings, saying “his duty to inform the parliament about his meetings did not disappear just because he refuses to talk about a federal solution [to the Cyprus problem].”
Speaking about the OTS and the exclusion of the north from its latest summit in the Kazakh capital Astana, she asked “we were supposed to be observer members in Kazakhstan, why did we not receive an invite?”
Furthermore, she asked “if the name of the state was to be discussed, MPs were not informed of why we were not invited to the places we were not invited to.”
CTP ‘MP’ Sami Ozuslu then said, “the policy being followed [by Tatar in regard to the Cyprus problem] is wrong, and we still don’t really fully understand what the policy is.”
He added, “the politics of deadlock in Cyprus will not get us anywhere.”
“If this policy of equal sovereignty was able to bring young people in this country to a better place, we would also support it. However, it does not work,” he said.
He went on to say “Tatar has made no contribution to this society. I cannot forgive a single penny of this budget. He has divided this society and implemented an anti-democratic structure supported by a government with anti-democratic laws.”
“We neither have a leader who embraces this society internally, nor a community leader in the international community,” he said.
Despite the opposition, the bill passed through the committee with votes from the ‘government’ parties. The next part of the budget to be discussed is the ‘parliament’s’ budget, which is estimated to be around 337 million TL (€11m).