Arıklı to Üstel: “You Cannot Claim Credit for Our Work by Purging My Team”

In a social media post, Arıklı said successful bureaucrats who had worked day and night on projects implemented during his time as transport minister had played as much of a role in those achievements as the political leadership.

“Today, the successful members of this team are being dismissed one by one,” Arıklı said, adding that the Director of Highways was the latest official to be removed from office.

He said the dismissed bureaucrat had worked day and night on the rehabilitation, planning and construction of roads that had not been touched for 50 years.

Arıklı listed several projects carried out during the period, including the Northern Ring Road, Fota Road, Kayalar-Sadrazam Road, Karpaz-Manastır Road and the Kyrenia-Alsancak-Lapta Road, as well as the ongoing Kyrenia-Çatalköy, Değirmenlik-Çatalköy and İskele-Boğaz road projects.

“All of these are there for everyone to see,” Arıklı said, before asking Üstel:

“By dismissing our team, are you also going to claim that you carried out these projects yourselves? Are you going to say, ‘We built the roads that had not been built for 50 years’?”

Arıklı noted that UBP governments had been in power several times over the past 50 years and reminded Üstel that he had also previously served as Minister of Public Works and Transport.

“Why didn’t you build these roads that had not been built for 50 years?” Arıklı asked.

He said the contributions of dismissed bureaucrats could be disregarded, but the roads that had been built, the projects that had been completed and the services delivered to the public could not be erased.

Arıklı concluded his post by saying:

“It is easy to dismiss a bureaucrat. But you cannot change what has been done.

“You cannot claim credit for our work by purging my team, Mr Ünal.

“The public knows very well who did what and when they did it.”