CHP says AKP officials’ relatives are appointed to state bureaucracy without exams

ANKARA

Ruling AKP lawmakers, including former Economy Minister Zafer Çağlayan (R), listen to PM Ahmet Davutoğlu's weekly speech to the party's parliamentary group.

Hundreds of relatives and friends of Cabinet members and ruling party MPs have been appointed to state positions without passing the required examination, a spokesperson for Turkey's main opposition party has claimed, also producing a list detailing these recently-appointed public officials and their relations with the ruling party.“Let me tell you how this system functions. One of the ways is to appoint relatives who could not pass the Public Personnel Selection Examination [KPSS] to be private secretariats of governors, as these positions are exempt from the examination process. These positions have been used as a bridge for those people to become public personnel,” Republican People’s Party (CHP) spokesman Haluk Koç told journalists at a Dec. 7 press conference.After gaining the status of public personnel, these relatives and friends of Justice and Development Party (AKP) officials have been appointed to various state institutions either as experts or in high-salary positions, Koç claimed. He said the preferred institutions these AKP relatives have been placed into include the Telecommunications Directorate (TİB), the Energy Market Regulatory Authority (EPDK), the Turkish Radio and Television Corporation (TRT) and the Turks Abroad Directorate.Koç cited that Ömer Faruk Can, the brother of Fatih Can who was serving as President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s chief of staff at the AKP, was appointed as an expert to the TİB without an examination; a friend of Bilal Erdoğan (the son of the president), who was recently appointed to the TRT as deputy head and later became a member of the Türk Telekom Executive Board; and Parliament Speaker Cemil Çiçek’s son, who was recently appointed to the EPDK after serving in various state institutions.Koç also said Finance Minister Mehmet Şimşek’s sister-in-law Esin Kara had just started working at the state-run housing agency (TOKI), although she originally trained as a geography teacher. In addition, Interior Minister Efkan Ala’s sister and deputy Interior Minister Osman Güneş’s daughter and son are among those who have been recently appointed to state institutions without an examination, the CHP spokesperson stated.