Ministers often do not respond to parliamentary questions from opposition MPs, while the sloppiness of the responses draws reaction.
CHP Deputy Chairman Gökan Zeybek brought the exorbitant hikes in High-Speed Train ticket fares to the agenda of the Grand National Assembly of Turkey with a parliamentary question, but the answer he received to his parliamentary question revealed once again the lack of seriousness and merit in the AKP cadres who aspire to govern Turkey.
Abdulkadir Uraloğlu, Minister of Transportation and Infrastructure, responded to CHP's Zeybek's question about the exorbitant hikes in High Speed Train tickets and accidents, “The demand of our people for High Speed Trains is quite high in terms of being fast, punctual and reliable.”.
In his parliamentary question, CHP member Zeybek reminded that in the first 9 months of the year - between January and September - Ankara-Istanbul tickets were increased by 100 percent, Ankara-Konya tickets by 37 percent, Ankara-Eskişehir tickets by 65 percent, Ankara-Sivas tickets by 50 percent, İzmit-Konya tickets by 58 percent, and Ankara-Istanbul student ticket increased from 274.55 TL to 365.5 TL and asked the following questions:
1- What is the justification for the increase in ticket prices?
2- What is the share of depreciation, personnel and energy costs in service delivery costs in 2023?
3- How will railway transportation, which is the cheapest way of transportation and preferred by citizens and even the most reliable transportation even during the pandemic period, regain these features?
2-sentence response from the Ministry
Minister of Transportation and Infrastructure Abdulkadir Uraloğlu, instead of giving a detailed answer to CHP's Zeybek's questions, gave a 2-sentence answer that was not related to the questions.
Yanıtta, “Yüksek Hızlı Trenlere hızlı, dakik ve güvenilir olması bakımından halkımızın talebi oldukça yüksektir. Doluluk oranı %90’ları aşan Yüksek Hızlı Trenler ile Ankara, Eskişehir, Bilecik, Sakarya, İzmit, İstanbul, Konya, Karaman, Sivas, Kırıkkale, Yozgat illerimiz en hızlı şekilde birbirine bağlanmaktadır.” ifadelerine yer verildi.
Zeybek: I invite seriousness
CHP Deputy Chairman Gökan Zeybek reacted to Minister Uraloğlu's two-sentence response with the following words:
“This lack of seriousness shows us that the executive is deliberately and willfully failing to fulfill its duty to the legislature and is clearly obstructing the parliament's oversight activities.
Appointed ministers mock our nation by ignoring the questions of MPs elected by the free will of the people or giving answers that are far from serious. The obstruction of oversight activities prevents the public from being informed.
I say it once again... I invite the appointed ministers to be serious. If they have difficulties in fulfilling their duties, I recommend them to vacate those seats.”