İzmir does not get enough fiscal support from central gov't despite taxes collected, Mayor Soyer says

Duvar English

İzmir Metropolitan Municipality Mayor Tunç Soyer, from the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), on Dec. 3 stated that his province was not getting enough fiscal support from the central government besides the taxes collected due to the Aegean province being a CHP stronghold.

Soyer said “The people of İzmir have paid 890 billion liras in taxes to the state in five years. İzmir Metropolitan Municipality received only six percent of this tax, 44.7 billion lira. Our state spent only 26 billion liras of this 890 billion liras on İzmir,” while speaking at the İzmir leg of the Social Democrat Local Government Workshop in the 21st Century, organized by the Social Democracy Association (SSD) and the CHP. 

“Firstly, if we say that the world of the future is the world of cities, the rate of six percent (as municipality’s income from the taxes) is an insufficient figure. Secondly, only 26 billion liras of the 890 billion liras was transferred to İzmir as an investment. On what basis do you allocate a budget of 26 billion liras to İzmir?,” he added according to reporting by the daily BirGün.

Turkey needs to quickly produce solutions that will strengthen local governments and their financial resources, the mayor added.

Soyer also said that social democracy should be strengthened with economic and ecological democracy.

“Bülent Ecevit says economic democracy is the organization of the people and their becoming subjects of production. We know this mostly through cooperative activities. But this should not be limited only to agriculture. For ecological democracy, as the universe warmed by 1.5 degrees, we actually started living on a sick planet. It is not possible for us to heal until this planet heals. (We need to implement policies) such as our agricultural, economic and tourism policies compatible with nature,” he noted.