Victims of TOKİ Housing Reactions
Victims of TOKİ accommodations in Tuzla gathered in front of the AKP district headquarters in Tuzla and expressed their reactions to the increasing housing rates and real estate prices. TOKİ victim Musa Özdemir said, „First come and keep the promises you made to us, then make new promises. Do not use us as a tool for elections, we are fed up with that. We signed and finalized a contract, and then you took away our rights.“ „We are not earthquake victims, but we are TOKİ victims,“ he said. The beneficiaries, who were upset because TOKİ had raised the monthly rates and real estate prices of the houses built in Tuzla, gathered today in front of the AKP district headquarters in Tuzla and issued a press statement. Victims of TOKİ carried banners with the inscriptions „What you do to low-income people is cruelty, give us back our fixed repayment right,“ „You sell dreams, not houses,“ „We want our rights, not subsidies.“ TOKİ victims chanted slogans: „The victims are here, where is Murat Kurum?“ Victim spokesperson Fırat Balta said: „They say they will deliver our houses to us in 2026. As you know, the minimum wage in 2019 was 2,300 Lira. Currently, it is 17,200 TL. Under the conditions back then, we could only pay a rate of 890 TL, leaving twice as much money in our pockets. But now, they want us to pay an amount between 14,000 and 21,000 TL. They did not grant us the fifty percent discount. They did not pay us the fixed rate. We were told, ‚With the salary increase of civil servants, you will buy this house every six months with interest.‘ Is this justified by God?“
Reactions of TOKİ Victims
„We will not give them our rights along with our votes.“ Musa Özdemir stated that they are in Tokize and said: „When you have to trust a person, you first look to see if they have fulfilled the promises they made in the past. If you burden us with rising costs, you make new promises. I am calling out from here. I say, brother, come first and give us these rights first, with the fixed rates of the promises you made. There is one percent VAT for us here and the prices from that day. Do not use us as a tool for elections. We are fed up with that. We signed and finalized a contract. What happened? What has changed today? They took these from us when it comes to the year 2024. We are not really earthquake victims, but we are TOKİ victims. Today we stand in front of the AK Party’s provincial building, in front of the Tuzla provincial building. Because they gave us this promise. I am really very pleased. We agree with our votes. „We will not give our rights to them either.“