President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan addressed the nation on late Monday following a teleconference with his cabinet members amidst the coronavirus pandemic. Erdoğan previously announced further travel bans, stopping all flights to foreign countries, “flexible” working arrangements in the private sector, but no curfew and protection plans for the working people.
“Our most important concern is to provide the continuity of the supply of basic necessities, and to enable the continuity of production to support the exportation”, Erdoğan said, while he repeated his call for “self-quarantine” against the coronavirus pandemic as he did not declare any decision of lockdown.
While some scientists call for a countrywide lockdown during the coronavirus pandemic, the government has rejected such proposals so far with economic concerns. As most of the working people have to work at crowded workplaces without any health measures, they also use public transportation during the outbreak, while some of them have become unemployed or are forced to “stay home” with unpaid leave.
Erdoğan declared that they launched a nationwide aid campaign to “support the low-incomers” during the coronavirus pandemic, adding that he would donate seven months of his salary to kick off the campaign. He also said that the cabinet members already donated 5.2 million Turkish liras ($790.000) to the campaign.
Addressing the businessmen and the people, Erdoğan wanted them not to wait for the Islamic holy month of Ramadan (starting at the end of April this year) to fulfill their Zakat, which is an Islamic mandatory charitable contribution by the richer to the poorer, adding that his government is waiting for charities during the outbreak.
As Erdoğan’s office shared some IBAN information to collect the fund from the people, this campaign has led to heavy criticism around the country. Many people have responded to the government’s campaign with their social media messages, noting that a “social state”, as claimed by the AKP government, should have allocated a fund with the already-collected taxes to use during such outbreaks instead of calling for fundraising from the people.
Some people have also criticized Erdoğan’s government for spending the public funds on luxury expenditures as they have pointed at Erdoğan’s presidential palace in Ankara and his summer houses that cost astronomic expenses against the public sources. According to the data of the Turkish Court of Accounts, the Presidency spent a budget of 1.648 million liras ($252 million) in 2018, daily $687.000.
Meanwhile, the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in Turkey rose to 10.827 while the death toll reached 168 as of March 30.
