Earthquake and Public Donations (!)

Many charities, non-governmental organizations, and public institutions set up to serve the public tried to rescue civilians from the ruins. The failure of the coordinative institutions in this process cost many lives. In this section, we discuss the strange donation campaign by public institutions.

While all this was going on, there were some strange developments. A donation program called "Turkey: One Heart" was held on February 15, 9 days after the earthquake, with the organization of the Radio and Television Supreme Council (RTÜK) and the Presidency of Communications. A donation of 115 billion Turkish Liras, or 6 billion dollars, was collected in the program. It was said that these donations will be directed to the Disaster and Emergency Presidency (AFAD) and the Turkish Red Crescent, which work as the coordination board in times of natural disasters. As this is the case, individuals generally donate through programs according to their own economic power. A slightly different and economically confusing thing happened in the broadcast of “Turkey: One Heart”. When we look at the sequential size of the donations made to the donation program, we can easily understand what the problem is.

In this program;

- The Central Bank of the Republic of Turkey (CBRT) 30 Billion TL, i.e. 1.6 billion dollars

- Ziraat Bank 20 billion TL, that is, 1.05 billion dollars

- Vakıfbank 12 billion TL, 635 million dollars

- Halkbank 7 billion TL, 370 million dollars

- Savings Deposit Insurance Fund (TMSF) 2 billion TL, 106 million dollars

- Borsa Istanbul 2 billion dollars, 106 million dollars

- Turkey Insurance and Turkey Hayat Emeklilik 2 billion TL, i.e. 106 million dollars

Emlak Participation (a state bank engaged in Islamic banking) 2 billion TL, 106 million dollars

- Ziraat Participation (Islamic banking subsidiary of Ziraat Bank) 1 billion TL or 53 million dollars

The abovementioned institutions donated such amounts of money. Although all of the above-listed companies are joint stock companies, they are financial and insurance institutions controlled by the state. In addition, institutions such as Turkcell, Türk Telekom, and Turkish Airlines, which are open to the public but under the direct control of the government, also donated 7.5 billion TL or 400 million dollars. In fact, institutions such as the Presidency of Religious Affairs, RTÜK, Istanbul Police Department, Defense Industry Presidency, and ASELSAN, which are also directly public institutions and under the control of the government, also announced large donations. Thus, about 80 percent of the total amount collected in the donation campaign came directly from public institutions or institutions controlled by the government.

The point that draws attention here is that almost all of these institutions are affiliated with the central budget; When they make a profit, they transfer to the Treasury, and when they make a loss, they receive support from the Treasury. In fact, at the beginning of the year, a total of 60 billion TL was transferred from the central budget to the abovementioned three public banks (Ziraat, Vakıfbank, Halkbank). Now, these banks have transferred more than half of this amount back to AFAD and Kızılay. We will learn about the nature of the donation made by the Central Bank only when it is recorded on the balance sheet. As it is known, Central Banks declare high profits due to transactions such as increasing the monetary base and lending to the public in difficult economic times, and this is, indeed, an undesirable situation. All these things brought the donation program to the discussion. The donation statements of these central budget-dependent institutions are actually equivalent to the contributions made from the central budget. However, since the changes made in the central budget should be made and supervised by the decisions taken in the Turkish Grand National Assembly, there are doubts that the government has organized this donation program to avoid parliamentary control.