Istanbul Governor Davut Gül responds to Şişli Mayor: 'Wordplay'

Şişli Mayor Şahan evaluated the complaints he received during the Şişli Municipality October council meeting regarding reports that there are problems with the cleaning of schools affiliated with the Ministry of National Education and that children are going to school hungry.

Şahan stated that they would work to rectify the situation.

Evaluating the children's nutritional problems and complaints about cleanliness in schools, Resul Emrah Şahan said, "We will not send children to school hungry in Şişli. We will clean all the dirty schools in Şişli. I am receiving a photo; parents are cleaning the school. The state is insufficient, institutions have collapsed. Accept this now."

RESPONSE FROM GOVERNOR GÜL

Istanbul Governor Gül gave a harsh response to Mayor Şahan in a post on his social media account. Gül stated the following:

During my time serving as a public administrator, I have taken the utmost care to avoid political debates - and I continue to do so.

However, I felt the need to make this statement because I consider the remarks of Şişli Mayor Resul Emrah Şahan, such as "the state is insufficient, institutions have collapsed, let them give us permission and we will clean the schools," to be aimed at portraying our state and its institutions as helpless rather than being a political polemic.

There are a total of 3,963 primary and secondary schools in our Istanbul. A total of 18,465 cleaning staff in various statuses are employed in these schools. All personnel rights of these staff are covered by public resources.

If they want to do cleaning, they can start with the back streets that are filthy.

If they have so much money, they can pay off the debts they have not paid for years.

After they perform their own primary duties, if they wish to support other public services or our students, they can provide support for all of them within the framework of a protocol.

But we will not allow them to engage in 'social media municipalism' and wordplay by providing cleaning staff support to 5 out of 3,963 schools and food support to 250 out of 3 million students, nor will we allow them to smear the service provided by thousands of laborers.

RESPONSE FROM THE ŞİŞLİ MAYOR

Şişli Mayor Resul Emrah Şahan gave the following response to Gül's statement:

"Mr. Governor, we were saddened to hear complaints when we were expecting appreciation from you. As an elected public administrator, I would like to state that both our national education system and our municipalities are institutions of the state. Our common goal is to ensure that our children receive education in a healthy environment.

They may not have informed you, but this photo is from a school in Şişli where parents are doing the cleaning... We look at our citizens to see how public service is provided. The citizen is the mirror of the state. What we see in this photo are parents who are forced to clean the school. We submit this to your appreciation."