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TÜİK targets former head of the institution Birol Aydemir

The statements made by former TÜİK head Birol Aydemir have dominated the agenda. A response to Aydemir has come from TÜİK.

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The Turkish Statistical Institute (TÜİK), an institution that has become a subject of public debate due to the data it releases, saw its former head, Birol Aydemir, submit a written statement to the court in a case filed against the institution. Stating that trust in TÜİK data has been lost, Aydemir recalled the data the institution has obscured since 2022.

Aydemir later said in a statement to ANKA, "TÜİK has also been using prices collected via the internet in its inflation calculations for the last 3-4 years. TÜİK showed inflation to be at least 31 percent lower. If inflation had been announced correctly, a retiree receiving 15 thousand liras today would have been receiving 20 thousand liras."

Stating, "TÜİK has also been using prices collected via the internet in its inflation calculations for the last 3-4 years," Aydemir added, "8 regional directors who objected to this were dismissed on the same night. It is not normal for 8 regional directors to be dismissed at the same time on the same night. Because I served as the head of that institution for 4.5 years."

Following Aydemir's statements, which dominated the agenda, TÜİK also issued a written statement.

 

In the statement, which targeted the institution's former head Aydemir, it was argued that the allegations in question have no relation to the truth.

The full text of TÜİK's statement is as follows:

"Following the inclusion in news and posts in some press and media outlets and social media accounts of statements made by former TÜİK President Birol Aydemir, who has served in different political parties, with a political motive and a conscious effort to create a perception, the following information has been deemed necessary:

It has been observed that baseless allegations, which are far from scientific and do not correspond to the facts, claiming that TÜİK has shown inflation to be 31 percent lower in the last 3 years by comparing the Wage Earners' Cost of Living Index announced by the Istanbul Chamber of Commerce (İTO) for Istanbul with the CPI, have been included.

Since the CPI prepared and published by TÜİK and the İTO 'Wage Earners' Cost of Living Index (1995-100)' differ in terms of base years, item definition and variety, classification type, weighting structure, geographical coverage, calculation methods, and the income groups they address, comparing these two indices does not produce meaningful results. It is for this reason that İTO has changed the base year and methodology of its index and started publishing a new index as of 2025 under the name Istanbul Consumer Price Index.

Furthermore, the allegations also include unfounded statements that are entirely intended for manipulation regarding the term of office of our Institution President and the appointments of our Regional Directors.

The President of TÜİK, like other similar appointments, is appointed for a specific period by Presidential Decree. This situation is not unique to the TÜİK Presidency.

The changes in duty in question regarding our Regional Directors were made in 2020, and while some of our Regional Directors were assigned to the center, some Regional Directors were assigned as Regional Directors to other Regional Directorates. The changes in duty made have nothing to do with inflation calculation as claimed, and are routine assignments.

TÜİK has been conducting the web scraping method for approximately 4 years through a system developed in cooperation with TÜBİTAK that operates completely automatically. This system absolutely does not allow any person or regional directorate to enter prices manually. The web scraping process collects prices of pre-determined products from pre-determined websites automatically and at daily intervals.

The products to be monitored in the system are determined every year in December with comprehensive analyses and are kept constant without changes throughout the year. Therefore, a practice such as finding the cheapest product during the year or ensuring that they are used by notifying the directorates in the regions is completely unfounded.

In addition, the share of data obtained through the web scraping method in the total CPI price data is only approximately 5 percent. In other words, internet data has only a limited weight in inflation calculation. TÜİK collects price data from the field, from barcode data, and from very different sources in a much more comprehensive manner.

Contrary to what is claimed, TÜİK obtains web scraping data centrally, automatically, and daily; it does not open this data to manual entry in any way, does not give instructions to regional directorates in this direction, and evaluates it in accordance with international standards by monitoring the same products from fixed websites at regular intervals throughout the year. For this reason, the allegations in question have no relation to the truth.

In this context, TÜİK calculates the Consumer Price Index (CPI) independently, with the scientific and technical autonomy it possesses, based on the data it compiles from the field, not according to the request, instruction, or prediction of any person, authority, or institution.

We present to the public's information that we will exercise all our legal rights regarding the matter."