Only ten days after getting appointed as the head of Turkish State Railways (TCDD), Abdülkerim Murat Atik got fired on September 14. That was the last example of Erdoğan’s one-after-other appointments in top positions of bureaucracy, mostly based on close-circle references but cause havoc within the system.
Former director of the TCDD Ali İhsan Uygun was dismissed by the Transportation and Infrastructure Minister Adil İsmailoğlu, after failing to make the maiden trip of the Ankara-Sivas speed train rail ready for President Tayyip Erdoğan on September 4. (ismailoğlu’s ministry may not last too long, according to expectations in the Ankara backstage). Atik’s appointment was highly speculative because the Sun Group of the businessman had recently got a 40 million Euro tourism tender from TCDD. But Atik is dismissed after press reports about his links with the Islamic-cult leader Adnan Oktar who is now in prison because of exploiting religious feelings for benefit, including sex benefits.
State Railways is not the only example of bureaucratic havoc due to Erdoğan’s quickly changing decisions, seemingly taken without being too meticulously. Those include key posts regarding the country’s economy like the directors and deputy directors of the Turkish Statistical Institute (TÜİK) and Central Bank governors.
BirGün newspaper ran a story on September 15 about the bureaucratic outlook, translated by duvarenglish.com; you can read from this link.
