TRNC fails to spend grants and loans from Turkey

THE TRNC failed to spend more than 400 million TL in grants and loans from Turkey last year, it has been revealed.

Latest figures produced by the Turkish embassy in Lefkoşa showed the former National Unity Party-Democrat Party coalition government spent less than half of around 512 million TL set aside for infrastructure projects, and just under threequarters of 212 million TL given to boost the “real economy”.

A breakdown of the 2017 data showed wide variations in spending levels.

In the agricultural sector, 85 per cent of 500,000TL provided for the “development of meteorological services” was spent, while 99 per cent of 4.2 million TL for “the fight against animal diseases” was used up.

In contrast only 53 per cent of a 10 million TL contribution to “the construction of the infrastructure of the industrial estates” was utilised, while almost 90 per cent of some 13.7 million TL for environment projects went unused.

Many individual schemes across the board were listed as “zero per cent” spent, compared to some in the trade and industry sector where all of the money was used.

Other figures showed that 28 million TL from an education infrastructure budget of around 40 million TL was spent, while almost a quarter of 1.6 million TL in aid for the state Oncology Hospital in Lefkoşa was left in the coffers.