AKP, MHP block bill preventing public workers getting multiple wages
Deputies of the ruling AKP and alliance partner MHP voted down a bill that would prevent public servants from receiving multiple wages. Assigning government officials side-posts has been a common practice in the AKP, with multiple politicians and businessmen obtaining high-profile assignments as a result of their close ties to Ankara.
Duvar English
Deputies of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) and their ruling alliance partner Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) shut down a bill that would prevent public workers to receive multiple wages, Anka News Agency reported on Oct. 27.
The bill suggested blocking multiple wages for public employees on the grounds that the country was struggling with poverty with more than 10 million people unemployed and the general public has difficulty paying for basic needs.
"In an environment where the minimum wage falls below the hunger line, ministers and bureaucrats get paid salaries near 150,000 to 200,000 Turkish Liras, as well as pensions. You have bureaucrats receiving wages from 11 different sources," said main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) deputy Ali Fazıl Kasap while presenting his bill.
The deputy also quoted a Turkish poem about uneven distribution that meant to say the AKP's patterns of distribution of wealth were "cruelty" and "unjust."
After the AKP and MHP deputies shut down the bill, Kasap said that the two parties had "once again shown that they are not on the people's side."