Turkey Financial News

Posted by meb at April 11th, 2007

The results of the census conducted as part of the Address-Based Population Registration System will soon be obtained. Census work has been completed for 38 provinces.Turkish Statistical Institute (TÜİK) officers undertook census work in 19.6 million households. With 81 percent of the census work completed, Turkey’s population is currently 51,861,306. While census work in smaller cities has been completed, only 40 percent of İstanbul could be counted. It has been repeatedly estimated that Turkey’s population has risen from 67,803,927 in 2000 to 73 million; however, the census work completed to date shows that Turkey’s population should be around 65 million.

In the census work completed to date, the residential addresses of 51 million people have been synchronized with their identification information in the Central Population Management System (MERNİS). People who do not reside at the addresses they have provided or those whose addresses cannot be synchronized have been identified using their citizenship numbers, thereby conducting the most accurate census ever.

There has been a population drop in 37 of 38 provinces. Only the population of Şırnak province has increased. Its population rose from 353,197 in 2000 to 360,769 in seven years. Census work in Amasya, Ardahan, Bolu, Giresun, Gaziantep, Hatay, Iğdır, İzmir, Manisa, Adana, Adıyaman, Antalya, Batman, Bitlis, Burdur, Çorum, Diyarbakır, Düzce, Erzurum, Eskişehir, Hakkari, Hatay, Kayseri, Kırıkkale, Kırklareli, Kilis, Konya, Manisa, Mersin, Muş, Ordu, Samsun, Sivas, Şanlıurfa, Tekirdağ, Tokat, Trabzon, and Van is 90 percent complete. Only 40 percent of İstanbul’s population could be synchronized so far while census work in Ankara and İzmir 60 percent and 98 percent complete, respectively.

İstanbul’s population to become 12 million

According to data provided by TÜİK, census work for 81 percent of Turkey’s population has so far been completed. It is reported that most of the people who were not counted, accounting for 9 percent, are concentrated in metropolitan cities such as İstanbul, Ankara, and İzmir. The results of the census work in these cities will weigh heavily on the overall census results. However, even if this 9-percent group is projected based on current results, Turkey’s population will fall below population figures obtained in 2000. Considering the fact that 4,423,310 people have been synchronized in the census work that been completed by 40 percent, the remaining 60 percent work might produce a figure ranging between 6 and 8 million, experts say. In addition of these figures, the population of İstanbul, which was 10,018,735 in 2000, will exceed 12 million. The results of the census will be disclosed in June.

More than 500 mayors will lose office

On July 1, 2004, the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) government amended the Law on Municipalities to change the designation of towns whose population falls below 2,000 to village. However, the government did not implement this amendment, fearing social reactions. The amendment also introduced a requirement for new municipalities to have a population of at least 5,000. If the 2004 amendment had been implemented, 340 town municipalities would have been turned into villages. The current census reveals that there are more than 500 town municipalities which fail to fulfill the requirements for becoming a town municipality. In the local administration elections scheduled for 2009, these towns will be designated as villages.

Also, some district municipalities will have to be re-designated as town municipalities. The number of such district municipalities is estimated to be 300. Thus, Turkey will see a significant drop in the number of town municipalities. For designation as a district municipality, a minimum population of 5,000 is required by the law. Thus, at least 150 of 947 district municipalities will be re-designated as town municipalities.

Not only will the address-based census disrupt municipal organization in provinces, but also deputy distribution across constituencies. In 14 of 38 provinces where census work has been completed, the number of deputies allocated will have to be decreased. Thus, the number of deputies assigned to Afyon, Artvin, Erzincan, Çankırı, Edirne, Elazığ, Gümüşhane, Isparta, Kars, Kütahya, Malatya, Rize, Sinop, and Zonguldak will have to be decreased by one. This naturally sends shivers down the backs of deputies ahead of the parliamentary polls scheduled for fall. The Higher Election Board had previously stated that the final results of the census, which will be disclosed in June, would taken as a basis for this reorganization. If the Board decides to decrease deputy quotas allocated to the constituencies whose population dropped, the deputy distribution across Turkey will significantly change. More deputies will be allocated to metropolitan cities, most notably to İstanbul, which currently has a quota of 64 deputies under the applicable law. In case İstanbul’s population exceeds 12 million, more than 80 deputies will be allocated to it.

First increased, then decreased, but why?

The drop in Turkey’s population is being regarded as a correction of the incorrectly conducted 2000 census during which local administrations tried to swell their population in an attempt to get more financial support from the central government. In the race for being designated as province, district or town, many settlements provided false population information to be entitled to municipal services. Politicians, too, made promises to help them in their quest to attain higher administrative designations. Thus, the number of provinces in Turkey increased from 67 to 81. The 57th government introduced an amendment which provides for per capita distribution of the appropriations sent by the central government to local administrations. In order to obtain more financial support from the central government under this per capita appropriation strategy, many municipalities hired transportation vehicles for their ex-fellow inhabitants living in other cities and carried them home to swell their populations. Even, some people who had long been dead were counted. Because of these efforts, the 2000 census did not produce reliable results. Thus, the address-based census corrected the false results of the prior census, showing a substantial decrease in Turkey’s population.

‘Per capita income is the root of all this nonsense’

Dr. Hikmet Aydın, a sociologist and a political scientist, explains the drop in Turkey’s population as follows: “In the past, the trend was to give higher administrative designations to settlements. People were transported to their hometowns in an effort to make them municipalities. With these fraudulent attempts, Turkey’s population was shown as 67 million. Local administrators reported fraudulently higher population figures as the Provincial Bank would pay monies based on population. The recent census shows a decrease in rural population. This implies increased immigration to metropolitan cities. All indicators of Turkey will have to be changed. As all indicators, such as per capita national income, and health expenditures will be based on this data, some people will claim that Turkey has secured a big development leap. The results of the 2000 census were incorrect. New calculations based on the current census will be incorrect as well. Turkey should not make this error. Deputy quotas will be re-allocated. Currently, 20,000 votes are needed to be elected as a deputy from Kilis while a candidate will need 150 votes from İstanbul in order to become a deputy. This is not a fair representation. For Dr. Aydın, abnormal decreases in the populations of certain provinces and districts imply criminal practices: “Take the case of Erzurum. Its population decreased from 316,000 in 2000 to 188,000. Rapid migration cannot account for such a big drop. This also implies that many provinces have done injustice to many other provinces. The perpetrators must be held accountable. Those who provided false information pertaining to Turkey’s indicators should be prosecuted.

source: Today’s Zaman

Related posts:

1. Registration rate highest in salaried class
2. Unemployment rises to 11.3 percent, informal labor down 4.5 points
3. Turkish ministry to spend 3.1 billion on Ankara subway
4. Istanbul, Izmir, Ankara fail in sustainability, survey says
5. New registration vehicles in 2006 reach 1.15 mln