Contractor Crackdown - The Turkish Government Attacks Construction Industry Post-Earthquakes
Amidst the outcry against the Turkish government’s emergency earthquake response, an underlying wave of accusations has been directed at the Turkish construction and contractor industry. The sights of post-1999 construction projects collapsed into rubble inevitably raised questions as to whether new contractors had complied with modern building safety standards.
Only a few days after the two earthquakes struck southern Türkiye and northern Syria, Mehmet Yasar Coskun, the contractor of Rönesans Residence, an upscale 12-story residence in Antakya destroyed in the earthquake, was at the brunt of harsh public scrutiny on social media. Likely in an effort to escape legal charges, Coşkun was detained at the Istanbul Sabiha Gokcen Airport while trying to travel to Montenegro with 10,000 euros. His arrest was pursuant to orders from the Gaziosmanpasa district chief public prosecutor's office in Istanbul.
Coskun was not the only contractor reported to have attempted to flee Türkiye in the earthquakes' aftermath. Hasan Alpargun, the owner of a 16-story residence in Adana, travelled to Turkish Cyprus immediately after the earthquakes, having been subsequently detained at the Lefkosa police department. Yavuz Karakuş and Sevilay Karakuş, contractors of multiple residences in Adiyaman, were also detained at Istanbul Airport's international departures terminal, with plans to head to Georgia with 16,000 US dollars and 20,000 Turkish lira.
Many of these initial detainments were carried out pursuant to a joint criminal complaint issued by 170 lawyers across Türkiye and undersigned by leading criminal law practitioner Murat Volkan Dulger. Calls for criminal action by public prosecutors against contractors had similarly occurred in the 1999 earthquake in Turkiye, with "symbolic" figures such as Veli Gocer facing jail sentences. This time around, the mounting pressure calling for public prosecution culminated in the Turkish Justice Ministry's establishment of the Earthquake Crimes Investigation Bureaus.
Public prosecutors assigned to the bureau have the sole responsibility of working on cases against contractors and other responsible parties related to earthquake crimes. The bureaus have also been empowered with the collection of evidence, reports, witness and expert testimony, and construction documentation. On February 12, the day of the bureaus' establishment, Justice Minister Bekir Bozdag said 131 suspects were under investigation, including 113 under arrest warrants. The number of issued arrest warrants related to building destruction has reached 160 as of February 22.
The Politics of Construction in Turkiye — Rampant Rentierism?
Turkish opposition and foreign experts have often accused the AKP government, led by President Erdogan, of facilitating corruption and "rentierism" through the exploitation of the construction industry and public procurement in Türkiye. In recent years, the nominal "gang of five" has been at the heart of criticisms of tender-rigging and embezzlement in large-scale public tenders. Indeed, from 2011 to 2020, those "gang of five" construction companies were found to have been granted tax incentives 128 times. Following donations from the owners of these companies on a national joint fundraising TV event in Türkiye, CHP opposition figure Kemal Kilicdaroglu declared he would relieve those donations from their "418 million dollar debt".
Yet, the impacted buildings from the earthquake relate more directly to much smaller-scale construction contractors who have still been propped up in a system accused of rampant rentierism. Indeed, one of the main questions raised after the disaster of the earthquakes has been the auditing and enforcement of post-1999 earthquake laws, including the promise of applying earthquake taxes to infrastructural reforms. It has inevitably made this earthquake a matter of politics as much as it is a matter of natural disaster.
The most recent reforms to post-1999 earthquake laws came in 2018, but the Ministry of Environment and Urbanization agency responsible for enforcement of such laws disclosed in a 2019 report that "more than half of all buildings in Türkiye — accounting for some 13 million apartments— were not in compliance". Indeed, across the national science community as well as the political community, there were loud warnings against the danger of a major natural disaster that would expose lax enforcement. Yet in the years leading up to the earthquakes, which included notable though smaller-scale earthquakes in cities like Izmir and Elazig, the Turkish government pursued a policy of construction amnesty.
Construction amnesties were a focal point in President Erdogan's campaign speeches in the lead-up to the Turkish district mayoral and local municipal elections of 2019. In a viral video compiling various clips from Erdogan's speeches during that campaign, the President can be seen boasting statements such as "We solved the problem of 144,156 citizens of Maras with zoning amnesty." In a Twitter thread, the Istanbul Municipality Deputy General Secretary, Bugra Gokce, recently revealed that almost 300,000 buildings were granted amnesty certificates before the earthquake. Contractors were given the political approval to continue their shoddy construction, with insufficient or cheap materials, so long as they covered the cost of a fine. In a tradeoff for political popularity derived from the creation of jobs, housing, and economic expansion, the AKP government ultimately exposed the population to the danger of living in unstable housing in an earthquake-prone region.
Scapegoating and Accountability Post-Earthquake
Taner Yuzgec, a former president of Türkiye’s Chamber of Construction Engineers, said after the detainments, “Rounding up contractors is a deed to respond to public outcry,” but the “true culprits are the current government and the previous governments that kept the system as it is.” In response to the detainment of Mehmet Yasar Coskun, the aforementioned contractor of Rönesans Residence, his lawyer suggested that contractors were being made scapegoats and used to deflect accountability. Although there is clear liability on the part of the contractors, the effect of the prosecutions relieving pressure and scrutiny on the government is a concern if the Turkish government could sweep its accountability for rentierism under the rugs
To what extent the Erdogan government may be held accountable could be decided in Türkiye's upcoming elections. The construction industry experienced an economic boom under Erdogan's rule and has helped sustain his political popularity. In fact, in a measure to continue boosting the construction industry amid a national economic downturn, another amnesty bill was reportedly in the works for parliamentary approval only days before the earthquake.
However, in the same way that the 1999 Golcuk Earthquake is said to have been a factor in Erdogan's election as prime minister in 2002, it is suggested that the outcry against these earthquakes could spell the end of Erdogan's rule in this year's elections. In his first broadcast statement regarding the earthquakes, a visibly outraged Erdogan declared that the government would also handle the distortions by the media that was trying to "cause social chaos". Promptly, the Istanbul Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office detained two journalists on charges of fomenting enmity and hatred among the people.
"Reconstruction in One Year" — Lessons Not Learned?
With thousands of buildings demolished in the earthquake, leaving tens of thousands of survivors homeless, the reconstruction of buildings in Türkiye's southeast is a topic of equal importance to the temporary relocation of affected victims. Accordingly, alongside Erdogan's declaration of the state of emergency, the president vowed to the affected population that the government would implement a rebuilding program that would rehouse all impacted individuals within one year. The estimated cost of reconstruction has been calculated at as high as 85 billion dollars, with the direct cost of the damage at approximately 25 billion dollars. This bill, with its enormous burden, also brings a positive opportunity for Türkiye to rebuild its infrastructure with more sustainable and secure processes.
Yet despite these demands for sustainable and secure rebuilding, there are inevitable concerns with these hasty reconstruction announcements. The declaration on February 12 by Turkish Environment and Urbanization Minister Murat Kurum that citizens can live in buildings with minimal or no damage in the earthquake-hit region has raised precautionary alarm bells insofar as it highlighted the government's continued laxness in overseeing building stability.
Geoscientists have warned that the accumulated stress will result in continued tremors in the coming period, as occurred with the powerful 6.3 magnitude earthquake in Hatay two weeks after the Maras-centred earthquakes. With such certainty about the dangers along the fault lines, the construction and relocation of citizens to minimally damaged properties involves a substantial assumption of risk
On a more long-term view, the government's vow to rebuild within a year under the state of emergency provisions has attracted questions of whether the earthquake devastation may open the way for new rentierism and cheap construction.
Notwithstanding the warning against lax construction practices from the widespread devastation caused to rushed and poorly-constructed buildings, the government did not hesitate to emphasise the speed at which it would rebuild residences. President Erdogan's vow suggested that rebuilt homes would be constructed on land distant from the fault lines.
Related analysis by economics professor Ozgur Orhangazi suggests that the rebuilding could reinvigorate the construction sector and restore some economic stability by creating jobs in the region. But the President of the Istanbul Branch of the Chamber of City Planners, Pinar Giritoglu, expressed concern over how this could be achieved with the ongoing aftershocks and lack of stable foundation and soil to build on. Additionally, Giritoglu noted that after each high-scale earthquake, it has been common practice to make unfulfilled vows of future residency, which have left earthquake victims hopelessly waiting.
The alternative response proposed by various architectural and geological experts to the rushed rebuilding of residences has been to conduct scientific studies such as microregional investigations to produce instructive geological maps for construction authorizations. Even where a new building may have been compliant, the scale of disaster has been so extreme that hundreds of recent constructions were demolished in the earthquake—to the contrary of President Erdogan's claims that almost exclusively pre-1999 buildings collapsed. The government's biggest priority, therefore, continues to be the provision of emergency relief through temporary shelters, food, and general support. The proposal of speedy reconstruction is a measure that will require heightened public scrutiny, caution, and reconsideration in light of warnings from the science community.