Kurtulmuş issues 'reputation' warning: 68 thousand written questions were not answered on time

Tens of thousands of parliamentary questions remained unanswered by ministers during the last legislative term. Parliament Speaker Numan Kurtulmuş warned the cabinet by sending a letter.

CHP Group Deputy Chair Ali Mahir Başarır asked Parliament Speaker Numan Kurtulmuş whether ministers had been warned regarding the unanswered questions. Responding to the motion, Parliament Speaker Numan Kurtulmuş admitted that tens of thousands of questions were not answered on time during the previous term. 

THEY WERE WARNED 569 TIMES FOR THOUSANDS OF QUESTIONS

Parliament Speaker Kurtulmuş stated the following:

“Unanswered written parliamentary questions are published in the list of incoming papers, and this situation is reported to the Vice President and the ministers. In this regard, it was announced in 323 separate lists of incoming papers that 68 thousand 701 written parliamentary questions were not answered within the specified time during the 27th legislative term.” 

Kurtulmuş also stated that this situation was reported to the Vice President and the ministers through 569 separate letters.

According to the report by Hüseyin Şimşek from BirGün; stating that the warnings during the 27th legislative term were not limited to this, Parliament Speaker Kurtulmuş further emphasized the following in his response:

“As in previous legislative terms, during the 27th legislative term, the TBMM Speaker's Office sent letters to the Vice Presidency and the ministries on 26.10.2018, 05.07.2019, 17.01.2020, 10.08.2020, 29.01.2021, 09.07.2021, 18.01.2022, and 07.07.2022, showing the status of responses to written parliamentary questions. In these letters, the necessity of answering written parliamentary questions within the legal timeframe and ensuring that the responses are prepared in a manner befitting the dignity of the TBMM, fully addressing the questions, and being sufficient and satisfactory, was conveyed.”

NO ONE IS LISTENING THIS TERM EITHER

In this legislative term as well, questions are mostly not being answered within the required time. 

According to data from the TBMM Speaker's Office, 1 thousand 653 of the questions directed to ministers by deputies in the recent period were answered within the legal timeframe. In contrast, 1 thousand 908 questions were answered after the 15-day legal period had expired. 2 thousand 194 questions were returned because they were not answered by the ministers.

News Source: 12punto