Questions to Tekin on MESEM and tenders: 'This is a trap, this is a setup'

The Grand National Assembly of Turkey's Plan and Budget Committee debated the Ministry of National Education's 2027 Central Government Budget Law Proposal. Opposition lawmakers raised with Minister Yusuf Tekin the children who lost their lives in MESEM, the security and hygiene problems in schools, and corruption allegations.

DEM Party Diyarbakır MP Adalet Kaya relayed to Tekin the cleaning problem at her daughter's school: "Our school has a smart board, but we try not to drink water all day so we don't have to go to the toilet." Kaya stated that the toilets were filthy and that there was no soap or cleaning. YENİ Party Manisa MP Ahmet Vehbi Bakırlıoğlu asked: "While children die in MESEM, while children face violence in schools, while children come to school hungry, can you sleep?"

YENİ Party Ankara MP Aliye Timisi Ersever said paid teachers were made to work "below the hunger threshold, under conditions without job security," and added: "No one has harmed the teaching profession as much as you have." EMEP Gaziantep MP Sevda Karaca, for her part, argued that Tekin did not deliver a budget presentation and instead read out "a thoroughly ideological text."

At the center of the debate were the allegations of YENİ Party Istanbul MP Suat Özçağdaş. Stating that the person indicated by the findings was Ömür Fatih Karakullukçu, General Director of Support Services at the Ministry of National Education, Özçağdaş referred to the Court of Accounts' decisions. Özçağdaş alleged that the 7th Chamber of the Court of Accounts had identified nearly 600 million in corruption in tenders carried out by the tender official who sits right behind the Minister.

Tekin responded by recounting the Court of Accounts process: he claimed that in 2023 they removed a provincial director of national education from office, and that in 2024 the chief auditor assigned to audit the ministry's accounts was the brother of the removed director. Saying that they wrote to the State Supply Office (DMO) four times and received the reply "We do not have these materials in our hands," Tekin said: "This is a trap, this is a setup."

Tekin also used harsh words toward the YENİ Party members, saying: "My leader does not hold rallies in election squares behind corrupt people and thieves like you." YENİ Party MPs responded with the words: "You cannot take our chairman's name into your mouth, it is not within your bounds."

Tekin stated that they did not treat any civil society organization differently, including Ülkü Ocakları, TÜGVA, Yeşilay and Kızılay, and said: "We have not transferred a single kuruş of public resources to any of them, and we will not." He said he respects the views of those who categorically oppose the criticism directed at MESEM, but that the ministry would continue its MESEM policy.