Prosecutors in Ankara have found no legal grounds to initiate an investigation into executives from the country’s national statistical agency, the Turkish Statistical Institute (TurkStat), on accusations of manipulating inflation data, the Cumhuriyet daily reported.
The main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) filed criminal complaints against TurkStat officials at the Ankara Courthouse on July 19, accusing it of underreporting inflation figures, thus causing a financial loss for private sector workers, civil servants and pensioners, whose salaries or pensions are set according to the level of inflation.
The prosecutors decided the same day that there were no grounds to investigate the TurkStat officials. Their decision, which became public on Friday, attracted criticism from CHP leader Özgür Özel.
Speaking to reporters during a visit to the western province of Bursa on Friday, Özel said the prosecutors who decided not to pursue legal action against the TurkStat officials simply lack a conscience.
“I don’t mean to humiliate members of the judiciary, but if they are making this kind of decision about the TurkStat officials, this is the only thing that can be said about them,” Özel said.
He said the prices of goods and the rent people pay do not match the inflation figures announced by TurkStat and that many wage earners and pensioners are having difficulty in meeting even their basic needs.
“TurkStat is not only lying [about the inflation figures], it is also stealing from people’s pockets,” said Özel.
TurkStat announces inflation figures for the previous month at the beginning of the new month. It has been attracting more attention about the accuracy of its statistics, particularly after ENAG, an independent group of economists, began to release its own inflation data, disputing the TurkStat figures.
ENAG’s inflation figures are sometimes twice the level announced by TurkStat.
For instance, Turkey’s inflation stood over 71 percent in June, according to TurkStat data, but ENAG announced that it was above 113 percent that month.
The CHP, in its criminal complaints, accused the members of TurkStat’s executive board including its president, Erhan Çetinkaya, of official misconduct in public office, a crime under Article 257 of the Turkish Penal Code (TCK).
Opposition parties and government skeptics have been criticizing TurkStat for not releasing accurate figures for important statistics such as inflation and unemployment, instead presenting statistics that fail to reflect market realities. The institute is accused of manipulating the numbers in order to mask the scale of the country’s economic deterioration under the Justice and Development Party (AKP) government.
A recent survey conducted by MetroPoll revealed that an overwhelming majority of Turks, 61.7 percent, believe that TurkStat is releasing lower figures than the country’s actual inflation numbers.
Over the past several years Turkey has been suffering from a deteriorating economy, with high inflation and unemployment as well as a poor human rights record. The lira has been the worst performer in emerging markets for several years running due largely to economic and monetary policy concerns under the government of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.