Retirees' pensions and the health of 85 million depend on CHP municipalities: Minister Işıkhan's pointed 'premium debt' jab
Following AKP Chairman and President Erdoğan's decision to bring municipal debts to the agenda, Minister of Labor and Social Security Vedat Işıkhan stated that they are ready to take the necessary steps regarding premium debts. In his statement, Işıkhan implied that if CHP-run municipalities do not make payments, pension payments could be jeopardized.
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During the AKP group meeting, Erdoğan reminded CHP Chairman Özgür Özel, who had requested a raise for retirees, of the municipalities' premium debts, stating, "You cannot hide the embarrassment of the promises you did not keep by making even bigger promises."
Erdoğan spoke as follows regarding municipal debts:
"If you have the power, tell your mayors to lower the prices of the services for which they asked for votes from the nation by saying 'We will do it for free,' but then raised prices three or four times in three months.
If you want to be of benefit to retirees, give the instruction for your municipalities to pay their accumulated debts to the Social Security Institution (SGK).
It is easy to say in the squares, 'We will give free tractors to those who vote for us'; what is difficult is to be a person of your word and to remain loyal to your oath.
Currently, our Ministry of Treasury and Finance will begin the collection of these debts at the source regarding the debts of the municipalities.
There is no such thing as a bagel for 25 kuruş. There is no permission to spend the nation's assets in various places. Therefore, the Ministry of Treasury and Finance will now collect this at the source; you should know this as such."
In a statement he made on X, Minister Işıkhan also announced that the necessary steps will be taken to collect debts from CHP municipalities, whose premium debts have increased since the local elections.
Minister Işıkhan used the following expressions in the post he shared on his social media account:
"While covering the monthly salaries of our 16 million retirees and the health, treatment, and medication expenses of our 85 million citizens within the scope of social security, our most important source of income is insurance premiums.
For the sustainability of our social security system, we must increase employment, combat informal employment, and collect premium debts.
We are continuing our work in this regard without interruption.
Before the local elections, we had announced with data that the premium debts of CHP municipalities in particular had reached an extreme level and had called on all municipalities to pay their premium debts.
In line with what our President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has also expressed, we are determined to take all necessary steps to collect premium debts from municipalities."