The north’s ‘finance minister’ Ozdemir Berova on Monday defended his ‘ministry’s’ use of stolen vehicles for official purposes.
Speaking in ‘parliament’, he said that while 61 vehicles imported from the United Kingdom between June 2022 and the end of last year were found to have been stolen, the repurposing of those vehicles for official use rather than allowing them to be sold for profit has disincentivised people from importing stolen cars into the north.
“Three years ago, when a stolen second-hand vehicle would be imported, it was cleared by the state without being noticed, given registration plates, and used. The owners would then cross into the south and their vehicles would be seized as they were stolen,” he said.
He added that now, a “mechanism” has been put in place to identify the stolen cars and put them into official use if they are not claimed, and said the ‘foreign ministry’ has contacted the British foreign office regarding the issue.
“With the mechanism, imported vehicles are subject to serious questioning on documents, individual numbers and images. Thanks to this mechanism, there has been a dramatic decrease in the number of stolen vehicles,” he said.
He added that the vehicles’ original owners in the UK have been informed that if they wish, they can file a request with his ‘ministry’ and have their vehicles returned to them.
Asked by opposition party CTP leader Tufan Erhurman to clarify whether the vehicles were currently in use, he said a number of them are.
“These vehicles have been seized by the state, and no revenue has been claimed. This is a practice that a completely reputable state should do … Instead of having them rotting in a warehouse, the state also uses them, and this is done after legal opinions are obtained,” he saidl
However, CTP ‘MP’ Sila Usar Incirli was less than convinced, saying that using stolen vehicles for official purposes will “incur a very high cost for the state’s reputation”.
“According to some, there are hundreds of these vehicles. If these claims are true, this situation means legitimising theft,” she said.
Meanwhile, the north’s former tax office director Goksel Saydam pointed out the financial implications of using the vehicles for public service.
“While there is a general consensus among economists that existing official service vehicles should be sold off to reduce the budget deficit, the government’s decision to put 61 more cars into public service is a big mistake,” he began.
The debate was sparked after former Turkish Cypriot chief negotiator for the Cyprus problem Kudret Ozersay said on Sunday that his political party the HP’s “anti-corruption unit” had sought legal opinions from the north’s chief public prosecutor’s office on the practice.
He said the chief public prosecutor’s office had been of the opinion that the process be brought to an end.
Ozersay had first raised the question of repurposed stolen vehicles being used by ‘government’ officials in the north back in 2011, when he alleged that then ‘finance minister’ and incumbent Turkish Cypriot leader Ersin Tatar was driving a stolen Land Rover Discovery.
However, the north’s customs department later confirmed that the car’s previous owner had left it at the Kyrenia port upon his arrival to the north before leaving to the Republic, never to return.
The car was then put up for auction by the north’s customs department, but no buyer was found, and as such, it was put into service as an official vehicle by the ‘finance ministry’.
