VAN – With President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s signature, new governors have been appointed in Malatya, Kocaeli, Çanakkale, Elazig and Diyarbakir.
The most striking name in the decision published in the Official Gazette is that of Governor and Chief Property Inspector Murat Zorluoğlu, who was appointed by the Diyarbakir Governor.
Zorluoğlu was appointed by the city of Van in 2017 when he was the governor of Elazig Province and served as the administrator of the Van Metropolitan Municipality. He was then elected mayor of Trabzon Metropolitan Municipality as the AK Party candidate in the 2019 local elections.
Zorluoğlu was not nominated again for the March 31, 2024 local elections, but this time he was appointed Diyarbakir governor just three months after the elections.
“It was a great pleasure and a lot of fun,” the Secretary-General said.
Zorluoğlu’s name has been the subject of much controversy during his two-year term in Van, where he first surfaced when he was appointed trustee of the Van Metropolitan Municipality and then fired 306 subcontracted workers.
After the 2011 Van earthquake, 1,888 people were employed through İŞKUR in the Van Metropolitan Municipality. On December 4, 2017, the decision was made to switch subcontracted workers to permanent employees, and 1,702 people who had completed security investigations were interviewed. As a result of these interviews, 440 people were removed. However, about a week later, the 134 people who had been removed were reinstated without a court order. The remaining 306 workers won their own legal battles, but they were not reinstated during the eight-year receivership.
Mustafa Yalçin, who was then secretary-general of the Van Metropolitan Municipality under the administrator Zorluoğlu government, spoke about the job cuts on a television program watched in Kayseri: “I think 653 people were fired with my signature.” Some people were forced out of their jobs by government decree. But let me just say this, doing the suspensions was a lot of fun, and I enjoyed it.”
Mustafa Yalçin, who ran as an AK Party candidate in 2019, was elected mayor of Talas. Yalçin has served two terms as president.
Accounting Court Report Fraud
During Zorluoğlu’s tenure at Van, the Accounts Court report reflected numerous irregularities.
The 2017 report of the Court of Accounts stated that the follow-up of revenue-related receivables in the Metropolitan City of Van was not carried out within the framework of legal provisions, and the information in the activity receivables account group in the financial statements was inaccurate and did not reflect the truth.
The report also found that: financial status and expectations reports had not been prepared and published, transactions related to real estate management were not carried out in accordance with the provisions of the law, the provisions of Public Procurement Law No. 4734 were not observed in the purchase of properties, the provision of goods and services, regulations on social assistance were not duly implemented, accounting records were not prepared for leased fixed assets, and service concession agreements were prepared contrary to the law.
Similar findings were found in the 2018 report of the Court of Accounts, which stated that the real estate allocation transactions to public institutions were not conducted in accordance with the law, and the recruitment and employment of workers employed through recruitment services also violated the provisions of relevant laws.
“Luxurious official room” was on the agenda
Similar findings were reflected in the Accounts Court report when Zorluoğlu was the Trabzon Metropolitan Municipality Mayor. According to Fatih Saygin’s news from Duval, the Accounts Court noted in its 2022 report on the Trabzon Metropolitan Municipality that some tenders that should have been carried out through open bidding were carried out through negotiations, and that some institutions and organizations had benefited from Hamamizade Isambay. Another surprising finding was that the cultural center was not prosecuted and the works were destroyed in a short time.
During his term as mayor of Trabzon, Zorluoğlu also attracted attention for his “luxurious office room,” which was furnished with furniture worth 8,989,000 TL.
