Country of origin information report Turkey March 2007

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Local Government
6.06 The Library of Congress Federal Research Division in their January 2006 country profile of Turkey state that “Turkey is divided into 81 provinces (il), which in turn are divided into districts (ilce) and sub-districts (bucak). Provinces have an average of eight districts each. Sixteen large metropolitan municipalities, about 3,200 smaller towns, and about 50,000 villages have their own local governments.“ [110]
6.07 The Library of Congress 2006 report further noted that:
“These provinces are administered by governors (vagi), who are appointed by the Council of Ministers with the approval of the president. The governors function as the principal agents of the central government and report to the Ministry of Interior. Districts are administered by sub-governors. Provinces, districts, and local jurisdictions also have directly elected councils. Although local jurisdictions have gained political powers since 1980, the system remains highly centralised. The national government oversees elected local councils in order to ensure the effective provision of local services and to safeguard the public interest; the minister of interior is empowered to remove from office local administrators who are being investigated or prosecuted for offences related to their duties. Several ministries of the national government have offices at the provincial and district levels. An autonomous local administration exists at the level of municipalities (belediye), which elect a mayor and a municipal council. In the villages (köy derneg), the village assembly elects a council of elders (ihtiyar meclisi) and a village headman (muktar).” [110]
6.08 As noted in a letter from the British Embassy in Ankara to the Home Office, dated 14 September 2005:
“I am responding to a Home Office request for further information on Muhtars in Turkey and any computer system they might use. Muhtars are the elected heads of villages or small towns who are responsible for local administrative matters (e.g. recording births and registering names and addresses of newcomers to their village). Together with my colleague [name omitted], I recently visited two Muhtars’ offices in north eastern Turkey. Both Muhtar offices were very basically equipped and there was no evidence of any kind of computer equipment. In one village, local people told us that they had been without electricity for a year. (Turkish NGOs report that lack of infrastructure, including electricity, is still a problem in outlying areas of Turkey.).” [4g]
6.09 As noted in a letter from the British Embassy in Ankara to the Home Office, dated 6 April 2006:
“I am responding to your request for additional information on Muhtars in Istanbul and any computer system they may use. The Istanbul Security Directorate is running a Muhtar computer project which aims to eventually administer the work of all Muhtars from one center. The project began about a year ago and should be completed within a further year. 100 of the 956 Muhtars in Istanbul are currently using the system. Our Consulate in Istanbul was given this information by project administrators at the Istanbul Security Directorate.” [4k]
6.10 As noted in the European Commission 2006 report:
“The Law on the Associations of Local Governments was amended in January 2006. This allows villages, municipalities and special provincial administration to undertake joint projects. The expenditure and budgets of the joint projects became exempt from the Court of Accounts audit. This is not in line with the principles of external audit.” [71a] (p7)