AKP and MHP reject proposal to 'investigate problems in TOKİ housing projects'

The Republican People's Party (CHP) submitted a group proposal for the parliamentary inquiry motion, which was filed to investigate the problems experienced in TOKİ's social housing projects, to be moved up on the agenda and discussed in the TBMM General Assembly today.

"TOKİ HAS ABANDONED LOW-INCOME CITIZENS AND IS CHASING AFTER LUXURY VILLAS AND SKYSCRAPERS"

Pointing out that the country is facing a major crisis and inflation in the economy, Çakırözer stated the following:

“Millions are experiencing a housing and shelter crisis. Our people are helpless in the face of astronomically rising rents in both metropolitan cities and Anatolia. The salaries received by minimum wage earners and retirees are not even enough to pay their rent. What is the government doing? TOKİ, whose purpose is to create social housing for our low-income citizens, has abandoned this and is chasing after luxury villas and skyscrapers. President Erdoğan and the Minister of Urbanization Murat Kurum, who is responsible for TOKİ, promised that 100,000 citizens—including low-income individuals, relatives of martyrs, veterans, widows, orphans, and the disabled—would own homes within 1.5 years. Where are these houses? Thousands of citizens have been waiting for 4 years, struggling to even pay their rent while having no homes. Now, on top of that, they are facing a robbery. They have placed contracts in front of the relatives of martyrs, veterans, widows, orphans, the disabled, and retirees; down payments have increased 9-fold, and fixed payments have been canceled. The number of installments has been reduced from 240 to 180.

Another blow came from the VAT; it was increased from 1 percent to 10 percent. This is not how social housing works; how will these people pay these installments? Most of them are in a position where they cannot pay their down payments. No one is thinking about how low-income people will make these payments. Because of you, the citizens have no trust left in the state. Come out and defend how you increased a 900 lira installment to 10,000 or 15,000 lira if you can defend it; you cannot. If that is the case, come and support our motion."

The motion was rejected by the majority of AKP and MHP deputies in the vote held after the speeches.