Response to Mehmet Şimşek from Buğra Gökce: 'Istanbul residents will hold you accountable'

Treasury and Finance Minister Mehmet Şimşek had stated at the Southeast Table Istanbul Meeting program held at a hotel in Istanbul's Bahçelievler district the other day, "Before the AK Party governments, housing loans were almost non-existent. Once we brought it down to single digits, access to credit increased."

Responding to Şimşek, Urban Planner Buğra Gökce said in a post on X, "Unfortunately, Mr. Mehmet Şimşek is neither aware of the past nor the present." 

Gökce stated the following:

HE REMINDED OF THE STATE PLANNING ORGANIZATION

"It falls apart no matter how you look at it. 

1- Before the AKP, the homeownership rate was 73 percent. In 2023, the homeownership rate fell to 56 percent.

2- Due to the economic conditions and lack of planning, while the homeownership rate of segments other than the wealthy and capital owners has fallen, the chance of owning a home has also decreased.

3- Before the AKP, mechanisms capable of providing cheap public and social housing to our citizens in Turkey since the 1960s were implemented with intense efforts under the conditions of those days.

4- From the 1960s to the 1980s, Turkey allocated a share of 6 percent of its GDP to housing finance and housing production.

5- Institutions such as the Real Estate and Orphans Bank (Emlak ve Eytam Bankası) and TOKİ acted with a logic of planning. They produced social housing. They offered it to the public.

6- During the AKP era, the State Planning Organization (DPT) was closed. The understanding of planning was abandoned. Instead of being planning institutions that produce social housing and take measures to lower housing costs, TOKİ and Emlak GYO were reduced to contracting institutions that carry out applications through revenue sharing and land-for-construction agreements."

WEALTH TRANSFER

7- Due to unplanned luxury housing production, the increase in housing costs, and the sale of housing to foreigners, the public can no longer find rental housing, let alone buy a home. 

8- 70 percent of the total deposits in our banking system belong to approximately 1 million depositors. In other words, a very significant part of society cannot use housing loans, they cannot even come close to them.

9- Today, the richest 5 percent of Turkey's population owns 59 percent of the total wealth. This segment uses housing loans and becomes an asset owner."

Gökce continued his statement, in which he listed his criticisms, as follows:

"A CERTAIN GROUP..."

"In conclusion:

Due to the policies implemented during the AKP era, the public has become propertyless, and a certain group has become wealthy through wealth transfer.

During the AKP era, the citizen has not only stopped being a homeowner, but has also lost the home they had over their head.

HE POINTED TO THE ELECTIONS

Due to the policies implemented by the AKP, which started its journey by dropping six zeros, the Turkish Lira has lost its value and power. The public's purchasing power has fallen. Turkey has become impoverished. High inflation and high housing prices have condemned large segments of the public to a housing crisis.

The skill is not to put the nation in debt with housing loans, but to ensure that the public becomes homeowners by producing and supplying social housing.

Istanbul residents will hold this mentality, which has betrayed the city with unplanned construction and made capital transfers with Istanbul's urban rent while dispossessing the public, accountable in the March 31 elections."

News Source: 12punto