 oppose bureaucrats’ and advisors’ getting several salaries under different titles of state jobs for which the AKP is criticized heavily by its opponents, results of a public survey have revealed.){kind=link}
An overwhelming majority of supporters of Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) oppose bureaucrats and advisors receiving several salaries under different state job titles, the results of a public survey have revealed.
The survey, conducted by the Ankara-based MetroPOLL, showed that 61 percent of AKP supporters do not approve of bureaucrats and AKP advisors being paid more than one monthly salary by different companies or state agencies. This disapproval figure came in at 89 percent among Republican People’s Party (CHP) voters, 85.5 percent among pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) voters and 72.6 percent among Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) voters.
Multiple salaries for a bureaucrat or AKP advisor was considered wrong by 70.6 percent of respondents in total.
Turkey’s ruling AKP and its leader President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan are widely criticized by the opposition for filling state posts with cronies and eschewing merit-based assignments.
Erdoğan has an army of advisors who work for other state agencies at the same time. For instance, Erdoğan’s communications director, Fahrettin Altun, and his wife, academic Fatmanur Altun, recently came under scrutiny when main opposition CHP deputy Özgür Özel questioned why they have been receiving additional salaries from lucrative positions on the boards of government-linked institutions.
Fahrettin Altun is receiving a second salary as a board member of the Istanbul Stock Market, while Fatmanur Altun sits on the board of Turkish Airlines.
In an attempt to refute the claims but managing to confirm them, Fahrettin Altun said in a statement in December that he donates the 18,000 lira allowance he receives for his work as a board member of Istanbul’s stock exchange, Borsa Istanbul, to charity.