PM: Progress made in lifting MPs’ immunity
THE government is meeting commitments made to abolish the immunity of MPs against prosecution, Prime Minister Tufan Erhürman said on Tuesday.
Speaking at a special press conference to outline the progress the four-party coalition has made on key policy pledges since it was formed in February, Dr Erhürman said his government had taken a “very important step” in its bid to lift parliamentary immunity.
“We have shared with the public the details of many documents based on information ascertained from the police,” he said.
In March Dr Erhürman, leader of the Republican Turkish Party (CTP), named former prime minister Hüseyin Özgürgün, leader of the main opposition National Unity Party (UBP), and ex-UBP ministers Kemal Dürüst and Tahsin Ertuğruloğlu, as among 48 people under investigation over alleged wrongdoing.
Mr Dürüst and Mr Ertuğruloğlu are no longer MPs, having both lost their seats in January’s general election, although Mr Özgürgün held on to his. Earlier this month Mr Özgürgün said he had “no issue” with regards to his political immunity.
He said a parliamentary committee set up to examine claims against him and others was of the type normally established to look into “those who benefit from terrorism, money-laundering and drug dealing”.
“I have been in politics for 20 years,” he said.
“Everyone knows what my life was before. The laws are clear if there is a [situation] that requires action to be taken.”
Dr Erhürman added that work was also continuing on a new Bill that would force MPs to declare all their assets and how they acquired them. The CTP leader touched on a range of other issues — although he denied that the press conference had been staged as a “first 100 days in office” evaluation.
He said his “general vision” since coming to power had been to “develop the social economics of the TRNC and its people”.
He said it was possible to “solve” some of the “structural problems” of the TRNC through “public sector reform, local administration reform and regulating the law for financial matters”.
Dr Erhürman said a new Food Safety Risk Evaluation Board and an Information and Review Board had started holding meetings and that a review of leases of 10 years or more granted for the use of religious foundationowned land and property was under way.
That there was also “serious work” to form an Alcohol and Drug Addiction Treatment Centre.
“This issue is a bleeding wound,” the Premier said.
“The youth of the country aren’t receiving rehabilitation services after taking drugs, but are sent to prison instead.”
Dr Erhürman added that plans for a disabled-friendly park and recreation area in Lefkoşa were in the pipeline and that a tender launch was planned for the summer.
However he said the government was experiencing problems over planned investments because “the money has yet to arrive from Turkey”.
He explained that although a new financial protocol had been signed with the Turkish government on April 19, “the procedure in Turkey [to implement it] was not complete”.
On welfare matters, he said the government had doled out 500,000TL to “families in need”, as well as around 27,000TL to 17 people with multiple sclerosis.
Dr Erhürman also said the government was working on new regulations to encourage the spread of cooperatives and that a new law covering “illegally” appointed government consultants had been published in the Official Gazette.