Four department heads were fired in TURKSTAT: absolute silence continues

Four department heads at the Turkish Statistical Institute (TUIK), which has not been on the agenda due to inflation calculations and president changes, were fired.

According to information obtained by Sozcu.com.tr, Önder Değirmenci, Head of the Demographic Statistics Department, was one of those fired.

Said department came to light because it did not publish the ‘death and cause of death statistics’ for 2020 and 2021, the years of the Covid-19 epidemic.

In the statements made on June 23, 2021 and June 23, 2022, the TURKSTAT presidency stated that “the publication of the death and cause of death statistics was postponed due to the ongoing work on the administrative records of the institutions from which the statistics were obtained.

TURKSTAT published ‘death statistics and cause of death, 2019’ data on June 24, 2020.

IS THE NUMBER OF DEATHS FROM THE EPIDEMIC HIDDEN?

The fact that the death and cause of death data published each year have not been published for two years raises suspicions that the Ministry of Health did not report the death data related to the epidemic.

Announced population data also plays a role in raising these suspicions.

The growth of the internal population in Turkey, which was 901,384 in 2018 and 830,965 in 2019, decreased to 657,000 in 2020, the year of the pandemic, and to 607,000 in 2021.

The growth rate of the national population decreased to 11.3 per thousand in 2018 and 10.3 percent in 2019, to 8.1 per thousand in 2020 and to 7.4 per thousand in 2021.

According to the calculation by Güçlü Yaman, a member of the Pandemic Task Force of the Turkish Medical Association (TTB), based on death data from municipalities, there were 110,000 more deaths in Turkey between March 11 and April 31. December 2020, compared to the average. from previous years, but the official number of deaths related to Covid19 from the Ministry of Health, the figure was announced at 20,881.

Yaman said he thought the additional deaths were due to epidemics and epidemic-related causes, but exact numbers could not be known because official data was not released.

THE INSTITUTIONS ASSISTED BETWEEN ALL

TURKSTAT did not publish death statistics and cause of death, saying in a statement that “studies on statistics produced from administrative records have not yet been completed, therefore they have been postponed to a later date.”

In December 2021, Health Minister Fahrettin Koca, who was asked why Turkstat did not share death data during his ministry’s budget negotiations in the Parliamentary Committee on Plan and Budget, defended that “it is a problem of TurkStat ”.

Stating that due to the damage caused by the disease in those who have had Covid-19, a loss of 3-4 times the current deaths is expected in the next three years, Koca said: “We will see at least two or even three times when TUIK announces. The devastating impact of Covid-19 was not simple, it was enormous.”

FOUR DEPARTMENT HEADS HAVE CHANGED

According to the information provided by the sources who spoke to Sozcu.com.tr, the job changes announced within the organization three weeks ago are listed below;

1- The Head of the Department of International Trade Statistics, Tülay Korkmaz, was fired and appointed as a staff member of the “Turkstat expert”.

2- The Head of the Department of National Accounts, Cihat Erce İşbaşar, was dismissed and appointed Head of the Department of International Trade Statistics.

3- The Head of the Data Collection Department Ahmet Sarı was fired and appointed Head of the National Accounts Department.

4- The Head of the Demographic Statistics Department Önder Değirmenci was dismissed and appointed Head of the Data Collection Department.

5- Metin Aytaç was the Head of the Department of Demographic Statistics. Aytaç previously served as Head of the Population and Migration Statistics Group in this department.

In news published today by Bloomberg’s Beril Akman, it was noted that the Head of the National Accounts Department, Cihat Erce İşbaşar, was fired just after the third quarter growth rate was announced to be below market expectations.

CAST SHEET IN THE PLANE THAT CALCULATES INFLATION

Having served as the Head of the Department of Price Statistics for many years, Cem Baş resigned in May 2022, citing “health issues”.

Sources close to the subject assure that the managers and technicians who make inflation calculations at TUIK have changed a lot, and that the institution’s memory has been largely erased.

Mustafa Teke, the head of the unit that calculates the consumer price index at Turkstat, resigned just before the announcement of May inflation data.

5 PRESIDENT WAS SEEN IN 3 YEARS

Yinal Yagan between April 18, 2019 and May 22, 2020, Muhammed Cahit Şirin between May 22, 2020 and February 15, 2021, Ahmet Kürşad Dosdogru between February 15, 2021 and March 2 of 2021, between March 2, 2021 and January 29, 2022. Sait Erdal Dinçer served between the two of them.

Erhan Çetinkaya, who was appointed from outside the institution, has been the director of the institution since January 29, 2022.