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Turkey's social security agency withholds data as financial crisis deepens

Turkey’s social security agency has stopped releasing data on the labor force and its own financial situation, fueling suspicions that Ankara is trying to smokescreen the true impact of the country’s economic crisis.
A woman counts her money as she shops at a bazaar in Istanbul, Turkey, May 29, 2019. REUTERS/Murad Sezer - RC13E49E1B00
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Big social security deficits have long haunted Turkey, especially in times of economic turmoil. The problem has now resurged amid an economic recession since last year, with the Social Security Institution (SGK) placing an ever growing burden on the central government budget. 

Yet tracking the state of affairs at the SGK has become rather difficult, for the agency has stopped publishing its monthly statistical bulletins since January in what is widely considered to be a blackout. As a result of the information cut, key data on employees and workplaces, healthcare services and the number of those without any social security as well as the agency’s revenues, spending and deficits have remained inaccessible for more than seven months, fueling suspicions that the authorities are trying to conceal the figures.

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