Admission of error from former Minister Ali Babacan: The decision regarding gas and electricity distribution companies was not good

Former Minister of Economy and DEVA Party Chairman Ali Babacan stated that Erdoğan has given limited authority to Vice President Cevdet Yılmaz and Treasury and Finance Minister Mehmet Şimşek, saying, "If I were President, imagine what Mehmet Şimşek, Cevdet Yılmaz, and I could accomplish."

Babacan said, "Did we not make any mistakes? For example, there are organizations that became monopolies after being privatized. For instance, gas distribution companies, electricity distribution companies... If we were to conduct a retrospective accounting, the privatization of those organizations was not good," he stated. 

Stating that the scope of authority for Cevdet Yılmaz and Mehmet Şimşek is very limited, Babacan said, "Currently, the task given to Mr. Mehmet is just, 'If interest rates or taxes are to be raised, you raise them; you be the bad guy.' Today, I look at tax regulations and Mehmet Şimşek's photos immediately appear. But in this country, isn't all authority actually in the hands of one person? The authority lies with the President," he said.

Babacan spoke as follows:

"Without his permission, is it possible for Mehmet Şimşek to raise any tax or interest rate? However, currently, Mr. Erdoğan is keeping himself in a more stable position politically. He is making Mehmet Şimşek do the two bad things: raising interest rates and taxes.

If it works, it works. If it doesn't, he can immediately distance himself, he can immediately turn his back. If it does work, he will say, 'Look, I oversaw it, I did it, I accomplished it.' Therefore, I unfortunately see such an opportunistic perspective, an opportunistic approach.

If I were the President of the country right now, and Cevdet Yılmaz and Mehmet Şimşek were on my team, imagine what we could do with them. Because we worked together in the past.

We would pave the way for those friends, we would give them authority. We would say, 'Go and do your best for justice.' When I was the Chief Negotiator for the European Union in 2005, Cevdet Yılmaz was the General Manager for European Union affairs. I immediately took the 4-5 people closest to Mr. Cevdet as a working team. We always did very good work.

It also depends on the environment in which they work. If you were to say to Mr. Cevdet today, 'My friend, we want to reach European Union standards in every field. Starting with the judiciary, starting with law and justice.'

Mr. Cevdet would prepare the new study and bring it. When we said, 'Let's pass this in Parliament,' he would defend it very well and pass it, no problem at all. But right now, there is no one paving the way for them.

On the contrary, these friends of ours are currently people who are forced to defend mistakes, who are trying to cover up the shame and errors of others, and I am sure they are living with storms in their own inner worlds."

Making a self-criticism regarding privatizations, Babacan used the following expressions:

"Did we not make any mistakes? For example, there are organizations that became monopolies after being privatized. For instance, gas distribution companies, electricity distribution companies... If we were to conduct a retrospective accounting, the privatization of those organizations was not good.

Unfortunately, after privatization, they did not use their monopoly power well. Proper audits could not be conducted on those companies. The service satisfaction of our citizens remained limited. If we had foreseen that these things would happen from the beginning, I think it might have been better if those privatizations had never been carried out and they had remained under state control, for example."