Consumer Protection Association (Tukoder) made a statement about the bridge and highway hikes, which attracted great reaction from the citizens. In the statement shared by the President of the Consumer Protection Association, Aziz Koçal; “Our citizens, whose usual tradition has not been broken, has entered the new year with the news of hikes at night. The arrival of Thursday has been announced on Wednesday. In 2021, as in previous years, our citizens will struggle to survive due to the hikes made / to be made.
The 25% increase in highway and bridge tolls does not only concern those who have vehicles, but also concerns all our citizens due to the dollar-indexed pass guarantees given to bridges and tunnels. Another freak is the public reflection that the dollar exchange rate as a reason for a raise is of different origin. We had no business with the dollar, the rise of the dollar did not affect us, the exorbitant increases in the sales of goods and services without any increase in cost inputs would be punished by investigation. We ask on behalf of 83 million consumers, which services on bridges and highways have had an exorbitant increase in their inputs and you have made a high increase.
The excessive increase over the inflation rate to the bridges built with the build-operate-transfer method and the state guarantees high passage over dollars will bring an additional burden to the treasury due to the transition guarantee that will empty the pockets of the weak consumers. When entering the new year; The citizen whose purchasing power has decreased due to hikes such as fees, taxes, natural gas, electricity bridges and highways has no more endurance.
With the hikes on highways and bridges, the two sides of Istanbul have been separated from each other and the citizens' right to safe, quality, cheap and time-saving transportation is tried to be prevented. The roads and bridges built for the safety of the public and the prevention of time loss and the relief of the traffic have started to move away from their purpose due to the excessive hikes and the rising prices.
As the highways, bridges and tunnels built with the build-operate-transfer model are also guaranteed to pass, the consumer who passes through these is affected by the increase of the increase and the difference is paid by the treasury twice.
Services such as roads, bridges and tunnels, which are the necessary infrastructure for transportation, should be provided as a public service, privatization or build-operate-transfer model should be abandoned, transition guarantees should be removed from existing contracts and converted into Turkish Lira, transportation service should be provided free of charge.
According to the data reflected in the press, for the first six months of 2020, 1 billion 750 million lira was paid from the treasury only for the Osmangazi Bridge. Even people who do not even see the picture of the bridge from Edirne to the opposite side of this payment are in a position to pay for the bridge. For the parts of the Northern Marmara motorway that were put into service, 1.4 billion TL was paid to the operating company.
Even these figures alone are not a model of the build-operate-transfer model for the benefit of the people in line with the national economy.
172 articles of our Constitution "The state takes protective and enlightening measures for consumers, and encourages consumers to protect themselves." According to the government's provision, it should protect consumers who are weak against powerful companies and immediately withdraw the hikes.
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