Erdoğan plays politics with illegal electricity usage
▻http://www.todayszaman.com/business_erdogan-plays-politics-with-illegal-electricity-usage_396347.h
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan appears to have been manipulating the much-debated problem of illegal electricity usage in the eastern part of Turkey, a controversial issue frequently on the public agenda after video recordings revealed clandestine ties between distribution companies and the government in 2014.
In a regular meeting with muhtars (headmen) at the presidential palace on Wednesday, Erdoğan said the government has been expending diligent efforts to overcome security problems in the eastern provinces; however, it suffers financial losses from illegal electricity usage, a common headache for distribution companies in the region.
There are nearly 37 million subscribers registered with energy companies in Turkey paying approximately TL 70 billion in electricity bills ?????, of which an amount of between TL 5 million and TL 6 million each year is surcharged from those who pay their bills regularly. Yet the illegal usage rate in some areas is much higher than in others.
Abdullah Tivnikli, a businessman known for his close ties to Erdoğan, said early in January that he wants to exit his partnership with Dicle Electricity Distribution (DEDAŞ) — which serves 1.5 million subscribers in the Southeast — in order to avoid further losses due to widespread illegal use of electricity in the area in which the company operates. After the revelation of massive corruption investigations late in 2013, Tivnikli was allegedly heard asking then-Deputy Undersecretary in the Prime Ministry İbrahim Kalın for reimbursement from the government for subscribers’ unpaid electricity bills in a voice recording leaked on YouTube in April 2014.
Erdoğan seems to have aimed at relieving Tivnikli’s concerns as he addressed unpaid electricity bills immediately after his talk about security woes.
“They [Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK)] dig up the streets, lay mines along the roads and threaten people, set fire to their automobiles and bar highway and dam construction [in the eastern provinces]. Can you imagine? What will these reservoirs be for? Collecting water to irrigate dry areas… They generate electricity, if they are hydroelectric power plants. [When the PKK prevents dam construction] the burden will be on the government, and they will say ‘the state does not provide electricity for us.’ They are the ones who cut the electricity supply. The price of the electricity, unfortunately, is not paid as you may probably know,” Erdoğan said.
According to another voice recording leaked on Twitter, also in April of last year, Kalın told Tivnikli that the prime minister [Erdoğan at the time] was in favor of the idea of the state paying the company for illegally consumed electricity, given that the rate of unpaid electricity bills in the Southeast was as high as 60-70 percent