Increasing tolerance of corruption in the north

 April 29, 2024

In 140th position on the corruption perception index along with Cameroon

Turkish Cypriots took the streets on Friday in a march against corruption, demanding that the “swamp is dried and those responsible are brought to account.”

In the demonstration, supported by some 30 civil society organisations and political parties, protesters chanted against the “theft, bribery, nepotism, money laundering” in the northern part of Cyprus.

The protest came days after a 2023 study on corruption revealed “very common” and “worsening” corruption in the north along with bribery, money laundering and political corruption.

According to the comprehensive study based on Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) methodology, the north has a corruption perception score of 27 out of 100. On a scale of 0-100, zero indicates very high corruption and 100 indicates no corruption.

The score of 27 is far below the average score of 43 in 180 countries and places the north in the 140th position on the index along with Cameroon, right after conflict-ridden countries of Gabon, Laos, Mali and Paraguay. The corruption perception score of Turkey in 2023 is 34, placing it in 115th position, while the corruption perception score of the Republic of Cyprus is 53, placing it at 49. The average score for the European Union is 65.

“There is a very clear downwards spiral,” says Omer Gokcekus, one of the academics who has conducted the study for the past seven years. “And it is accelerating. This result is not coincidental or a product of the margin of error. The situation is serious.”

The score for the north has been significantly decreasing since 2017 when the first study was conducted. The score for the north at the time was 40. It ranked 81 among other countries, much higher than the current rank of 140.

Transparency International, which publishes the corruption perception scores annually for 180 countries, does not actually cover the northern part of Cyprus. But academics, Gokcekus and Sertac Sonan, with the sponsorship of German Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung (FES) foundation, have been measuring the perception of corruption in the north for the last seven years. They use Transparency International’s methodology based on surveys done among business executives and a group of retired senior civil servants.

Corruption rampant among ministers

A staggering 93 per cent of the 324 business executives in senior managerial positions surveyed said that there is corruption, with 80 per cent believing that corruption ‘is a very serious problem’. About 67 per cent said corruption increased in the past year.

Corruption was found to be most rampant among ministers (58 per cent) and politically appointed senior civil servants (54 per cent). The least corrupt were police, prosecutors and judges. According to participants, the most effective institution in the fight against corruption is police but by only 22 per cent.

Bribery

Twenty-five per cent of the business executives surveyed admitted to giving bribes, gifts or “offering a favour” in the past year, while a further 14 per cent refused to give an answer.

“Many people do not want to answer,” a question about bribery, Gokcekus told the Cyprus Mail. “It is not something to be proud of.” He added that the 14 per cent, who refused to answer the question, can definitely not be considered in the same category as those who said they did not resort to bribery.

The top three reasons for giving bribes were listed as “expediting procedures”, “finalising procedures” and “getting better treatment”. According to the business executives, “bribery or undocumented extra payments” are most common in public tenders, issuing of permissions and licences, land registry procedures and allocating and leasing public land and buildings. It is least common in obtaining favourable judicial decisions.

Money laundering

The study also revealed that 53 per cent of the participants believe that activities aimed at money laundering are common. The recent increase in the number of foreigners settling and investing in the northern part of Cyprus has heightened concerns about money laundering and led the Turkish Cypriot assembly to approve stricter anti-money laundering provisions.

Political corruption

The survey also gave indications about political corruption with 58 per cent of respondents saying that it is common to buy votes or offer special favours during election periods. Thirty-eight per cent said voters are frequently threatened with punishment unless they vote in a certain way.

Corruption at the top

Fifty-five per cent said the government is run by a group that largely only cares about its own interests while 64 per cent said officials involved in corruption are “not prosecuted” or “very rarely prosecuted”.

In fact, Turkish Cypriots are no stranger to top officials being involved in alleged corruption or corruption.

Turkish Cypriot leader Ersin Tatar has been under investigation by United Kingdom’s Serious Fraud Office (SFO) as one of Asil Nadir’s main helpers in the Polly Peck case in 1987. Tatar, who was the assistant treasurer, was alleged to have shredded evidence. He was unable to travel to the UK from 1991 until 2019 when the SFO confirmed that it was discontinuing proceedings against Tatar on the grounds that it is not now in the public interest to prosecute him.

Head of the Turkish Cypriot ruling coalition, Unal Ustel, has been embroiled in the infamous ‘jet scandal’ of 2020. Ustel, who was the then ‘tourism minister’, gave special permission for a group of nine Turkish businessmen and three Russian escorts to fly into Ercan (Tymbou) in a private jet and bypass the strict Covid-19 testing and quarantine rules.

Speaker of the Turkish Cypriot assembly Zorlu Tore, meanwhile, was arrested in Istanbul in 2006 trying to smuggle cigars. He avoided prosecution when he got elected in the assembly in 2009 and gained immunity.

Tolerance is increasing

Perhaps one of the most worrying findings of the study was the increase in the community’s tolerance of corruption. The percentage of those, who agreed with the statement “It is acceptable to use personal relations and connections with those working in public institutions to expedite procedures,” increased to 17 per cent from 5 last year. The percentage of those, who agreed with the statement “it is acceptable for the government to be involved in corruption as long as it provides good service,” increased to nine per cent from three per cent last year.

“Many Turkish Cypriots have normalised corruption,” says Gokcekus, adding that this is very troublesome. “If you don’t see something as a problem, if it doesn’t bother you, you don’t try to fight it.”

https://cyprus-mail.com/2024/04/29/increasing-tolerance-of-corruption-in-the-north/

Crime heaven: corruption ‘worsening’ in north

By Esra Aygin 

1 January 2024 

Former Turkish vice president Fuat Oktay with Turkish Cypriot leader Ersin Tatar

‘Deterioration in terms of corruption has been evident in our reports’

Multiple bribery allegations surfacing over the past week involving senior Turkish and Turkish Cypriot officials have shaken the northern part of Cyprus and raised important concerns about the prevalence of corruption.

The first, which may indicate connections between politicians and mafia, involves former Turkish Vice President Fuat Oktay. Voice recordings published by Turkish investigative journalist in exile Cevheri Guven suggest that Oktay received $50 million (about €45 million) in bribes from the wife of gunned-down Turkish Cypriot mafia boss Halil Falyali.

According to the audio published on YouTube, Turkish Cypriot leader Ersin Tatar acted as a mediator along with a Turkish journalist Alihan Pehlivan in organising and coordinating the bribery.

The voice in the damning audio allegedly belongs to Falyali’s former accountant and close associate Cemil Onal, who is heard saying the bribe was paid “in exchange for not confiscating the Falyali family’s assets in Turkey and to end all investigations against them.”

Onal was recently arrested in the Netherlands in connection with Falyali’s murder and is currently in a Dutch prison, where he allegedly made the recordings. Guven claims that Oktay was replaced as Turkish vice president because word about the bribery got out.

Oktay, who at the time was also the Turkish minister responsible for Cyprus affairs, Tatar and Pehlivan have denied the allegations while Falyali’s wife Ozge has remained silent.

Turkish Cypriots leader Ersin Tatar

Hotelier, betting and casino tycoon Falyali was gunned down in February 2022 in a gangland-style execution involving Kalashnikovs and A47s while being driven home. His funeral was attended by high-ranking Turkish Cypriot politicians including Tatar.

Falyali, who was known as the main sponsor of the campaigns of Tatar’s National Unity Party UBP, faced criminal charges in the United States for money laundering. A 2015 US court affidavit said he rans“a large-scale drug and weapons trafficking organisation” in northern Cyprus and was “known to be associated with Turkish organised crime”.

In the same YouTube broadcast, Guven said Turkey has turned the northern part of Cyprus into a “crime heaven” and therefore, does not want a solution on the island or international recognition of the breakaway Turkish Cypriot state.

He also said this is why Oktay and other Turkish politicians intervened in the elections for the Turkish Cypriot leader in the north in 2020 in favour of Tatar.

“They clambered on [north] Cyprus, they literally staged a coup d’etat in the elections,” he asserted. “They got the man they wanted elected so that this… network of crime becomes stronger in [north] Cyprus; so that [north] Cyprus turns into a crime heaven for them; and so that they can fill their pockets… It has come to such a point that they don’t want [north] Cyprus to be recognised by the world or a solution there. They have themselves a grey area that is not recognised by anyone… and turned [it] into a crime heaven.”

Turkey’s interference in the 2020 elections was documented in an investigative report, which revealed shocking details of threats, pressures and blackmail against the incumbent leader Mustafa Akinci, as well as other candidates and journalists.

In a further bribery revelation in less than a week, a Turkish Cypriot businessman alleged on a live TV show that officials of the ruling right-wing coalition demanded a bribe in exchange for granting him a loan from the Development Bank.

Businessman Redif Nurel said Fikri Ataoglu, who is responsible for the tourism dossier in the north, and Hasan Tosunoglu, the then-chairman of the Development Bank demanded a bribe of 2.5 million Turkish Lira (about €77,000).

Nurel said he refused to pay the bribe and therefore never got his loan request approved.

Nurel also said that foreigners can “buy” Turkish Cypriot citizenship for 30,000 GPB (about €35,000).

Ataoglu and Tosunoglu filed a complaint with the police over the allegations.

These revelations “do not surprise me at all,” said Turkish Cypriot academic Sertac Sonan, who, with his colleague Omer Gokcekus, has been conducting annual studies on corruption in the north.

“The deterioration in terms of corruption has been evident in our reports,” Sonan told the Cyprus Mail. And it has got worse in the last three years, he said.

According to Sonan and Gokcekus’ latest study published in March and based on Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) methodology, the corruption perception score for the north for 2022, is 27 out of 100 (where zero indicates very high corruption and 100 no corruption). The north’s score was 40 when the academics first conducted the study in 2019.

“I am afraid there is a worsening trend,” added Sonan. These developments “demonstrate that we, as a society, are headed downhill.”

The score of 27 is far below the average score of 43 in 180 countries and places the north in the 140th position on the index along with Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan and Cameroon. The 2022 corruption perception score of Turkey is 36, placing it in 101st position, while that of the Republic of Cyprus is 52, placing it at 51.

According to the 2022 study, 40 per cent of the business executives interviewed resorted to bribery in the past year. Seventy-two per cent of the 350 interviewed said bribery and corruption was ‘very common’. Bribery was found to be most rampant among the ‘prime minister’ and ‘ministers’.

“Turkish Cypriots have gone through bad times but in terms of good governance, I don’t think we have seen worse,” Sonan said.

He added that the worsening trend over the past years has a lot to do with the current Turkish Cypriot right-wing coalition, which has very close ties with Ankara, seeing themselves as “irreplaceable.”

“They believe they will never be held accountable,” the academic said. “And this makes them more daring in putting their own personal interests in front of those of society.”

https://cyprus-mail.com/2024/01/01/crime-heaven-corruption-worsening-in-north/

Corruption is rife in northern Cyprus

By Esra Aygin

March 12, 2023

North is 140th on the corruption index along with Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan and Cameroon

Turkish Cypriot coalition head Ünal Üstel (yeniduzen)

A comprehensive study on corruption conducted in the northern part of Cyprus has revealed that it is extremely widespread, with 40 per cent of the business executives interviewed having resorted to bribery in the past year.

Seventy-two per cent of the 350 interviewed said bribery and corruption was ‘very common’.

Bribery was found to be most rampant among the ‘prime minister’ and ‘ministers’.

According to the study, which was based on Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) methodology, the corruption perception score of the north for 2022, is 27 out of 100. On a scale of 0-100, zero indicates very high corruption and 100 indicates no corruption.

Transparency International, which publishes the corruption perception scores annually for 180 countries, does not cover the unrecognised northern part of Cyprus. Hence the need for this study by academics Sertaç Sonan an Ömer Gökçekuş, with the sponsorship of German Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung (FES) foundation, to measure the perception of corruption and to determine where it stands compared to the rest of the world.

The score of 27 is far below the average score of 43 in 180 countries and places the north in the 140th position on the index along with Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan and Cameroon. The corruption perception score of Turkey is 36, placing it in 101st position, while the corruption perception score of the Republic of Cyprus is 52, placing it at 51.

“This score is definitely worrying,” says Sonan, one of the academics, who conducted the study. The countries below us are the failed states most of which are going through civil wars.”

The study done for the sixth consecutive year demonstrates that corruption is on the rise. When the first study was conducted in 2017, the score for the north was 41.

As part of the study, a survey was given to 350 business executives, who are in senior managerial positions of companies. A separate survey was given to a group of retired high-level civil servants, who well know how the public sector mechanism works.

99 per cent say there is bribery and corruption

According to the findings, a staggering 99 per cent of the business executives, who participated in the study, say that there is bribery and corruption with 72 per cent believing they are ‘very common,’ while 54 per cent believe that corruption has worsened compared to the previous year. Ninety-four per cent of them said corruption is an obstacle to doing business.

Forty per cent of the business executives admitted to giving bribes, gifts or doing a favour to a civil servant in the last year to expedite or finalise work, or to get favourable treatment.

Sonan believes the real number is well above 40 per cent as it is difficult for anyone to say ‘I gave bribes.’

According to the business executives, bribery or ‘undocumented extra payment’ is most common in public tenders, issuing permissions and licences, giving incentives and allocating and leasing public land and buildings. It is least common in obtaining favourable judicial decisions.

Those surveyed mostly held politicians responsible for corruption. According to 84 per cent, corruption is ‘very common’ among ‘prime minister’ and ‘ministers.’ These are followed by members of the Turkish Cypriot assembly (76 per cent) and high-level civil servants (69 per cent). While 33 per cent said corruption is ‘very common’ among lower-level civil servants, 22 per cent said corruption among prosecutors and 20 per cent said corruption among judges are ‘very common.’

The study shows that the participants’ trust in institutional mechanisms that are expected to prevent corruption is quite low. Eighty per cent said the ‘government’ is ‘not successful at all’ in fighting corruption. Seventy-two per cent said officials involved in corruption are not prosecuted. According to participants, the most effective institution in the fight against corruption are courts, but only by 16 per cent. 

Political corruption

The survey also gave indications about political corruption. Seventy-five per cent of those surveyed said that it is common to buy votes or offer special favours during election periods. Thirty-four per cent said voters are frequently threatened with punishment unless they vote in a certain way.

Asked about the reasons why corruption is so widespread, Sonan mentions some shortcomings in the institutional infrastructure such as the lack of legislation, lack of qualified personnel, and most importantly, the highly politicised nature of appointments to higher levels of bureaucracy.

However, Sonan explains the grave increase in corruption especially after 2020 with a number of large scandals at the top of the Turkish Cypriot administration that have gone unpunished and even, in some cases, rewarded.

Some of these are the intervention against Mustafa Akıncı in the elections for the Turkish Cypriot leader in 2020; the AdaPass scandal – in which unvaccinated persons were issued fake safe passes for Covid 19 by the ‘health ministry’ in 2021 – the orchestrated collapse of successive governments in 2022, the murder of mafia boss Falyali in 2022 and his funeral attended by senior government officials, and the ongoing fuel procurements without tenders at the electricity authority.

“Accountability starts at the top,” says Sonan. “There is impunity here. All these scandals are taking place at the top and nothing is happening.”

The most striking of these scandals was probably the infamous ‘jet scandal’ in 2020. Ünal Üstel, who was the then ‘minister’ for tourism, gave special permission for a group of nine Turkish businessmen and three Russian escorts to fly into Ercan in a private jet and bypass the strict Covid 19 testing and quarantine rules. Soon after being dismissed from his position by the then ‘prime minister’ Ersin Tatar, Üstel returned to the top of the administration as ‘prime minister’ in May 2022. It has been widely speculated that Ankara is behind this appointment.

Sonan explains that this, coupled with the deep economic crisis that the Turkish Cypriot community has been going through in the past couple of years, makes people more inclined to resort to corruption. This explains worsening levels especially among lower-level civil servants.

“Hollowing out institutions though political appointments, rendering democracy and elections so meaningless through all these political interventions, moving away from meritocracy affects the society from the very top to the very bottom,” says Sonan. “Some say you have to hit rock bottom before rising again. I don’t believe in this analogy. For us, there is no rock bottom. We are in free fall and are constantly hitting more and more bottoms.”

https://cyprus-mail.com/2023/03/12/corruption-is-rife-in-northern-cyprus/