Ankara shifts public assets to sovereign wealth fund
In a move critics say is financially risky and intended to concentrate money into corrupt hands, the Turkish government has created a sovereign wealth fund to finance its infrastructural projects as the lira falls.
Controversy continues to rage over the government’s decision to transfer the assets of major public companies including Turkey’s state-owned bank and telephone operator as well as its 49.12% stake in Turkish Airlines to a new sovereign wealth fund.
The purpose of the fund, which according to Hurriyet controls assets worth 31.3 billion Turkish lira ($8.8 billion), is to finance big-ticket infrastructure projects and other investments, some of which are deeply controversial as well. They include the “crazy project” to create an artificial sea route that is supposed to run parallel to the Bosporus Strait from the Black Sea to the Sea of Marmara and relieve tanker congestion in Istanbul’s iconic waterway.
Critics charge that the fund will concentrate more unaudited wealth in the hands of a corruption-tainted government that will use the money to advance its own political interests and those of its business cronies rather than the country's. This view has been articulated by Selin Sayek-Boke, a respected economist and spokesperson for the main opposition Republican People’s Party, who claimed that the government was “going to take from the people and give to its own.”
A construction bonanza fueled much of Turkey's now dwindling growth, with the bulk of big public contracts being awarded to businessmen known to have close ties to the government.
