Following a cabinet meeting on Monday (March 4), President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan criticized opposition promises to significantly hike pension payments, saying that such a hike would not be feasible even if other cuts are made.
Referring to an opposition proposal to significantly hike pension payments, Erdoğan said “In recent days I have explained how opposition promises to significantly hike pension payments are empty promises. Even if we were to pause all expenses, including education and health care, and not pay our civil servants, such a pension hike would still not be possible.”
Erdoğan mentioned how under his tenure, monthly pension payments had increased from 66 Turkish Liras to 10,000, among other increases: “As the government that has increased the minimum wage from 184 TL to 17,000, handicapped benefits from 25 TL to 4000, and increased the level of prosperity in every field, we are of course aware of the challenges facing our nation.”
In his remarks, Erdoğan also acknowledged the work still to be done in Turkey’s fight against inflation, saying it had still not dropped to desired levels, while touting a reduction in Turkey’s budget deficit: “Hopefully we will once again be able to save our country from inflation, as we have done in the past. Likewise, the decline in the current deficit continues. We achieved an improvement of over 13 billion dollars in our deficit in the first two months of this year.”
Written/translated by Leo Kendrick for Medyascope
