TurkStat executives face complaints on accusations of manipulating inflation data

Turkey’s main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) has filed criminal complaints against officials at the Turkish Statistical Institute (TurkStat) on accusations of misconduct in public office through the manipulation of official inflation statistics, the Gazete Duvar news website reported.

CHP Deputy Chairperson Gamze Taşçıer, who spoke to reporters in front of the Ankara Courthouse before submitting her party’s complaints on Friday, said the inflation figures announced by TurkStat are quite different from the inflation the people experience in their daily lives, claiming that TurkStat data are far from reflecting the real figures.

Bugün Ankara Adliyesinde TÜİKzede olan milyonlarca emekli, emekçi adına enflasyonu bile isteye eksik ve hatalı hesaplayan TÜİK Başkanı ve yöneticileri hakkında suç duyurumuzu gerçekleştirdik. pic.twitter.com/lgoosU7uua

— Gamze ŞENGEL TAŞCIER (@gamzetascier) July 19, 2024

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.

According to Taşçıer, although TurkStat has the ability and the means to accurately calculate inflation, it avoids this to hide the scale of economic deterioration in the country, 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.

If the official inflation is lower than the real inflation, they are given wage or pension hikes lower than they actually need to tackle the high cost of living, which makes it difficult to meet even their basic needs.

The CHP accuses the members of the TurkStat’s executive board including its president, Erhan Çetinkaya, of official misconduct in public office, a crime under Article 257^th 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.