İmamoğlu: 'The Effort to Pass Responsibility to Municipalities in Fires is Impotence'

IMM President Ekrem İmamoğlu, carried out the rail welding process on the Rumelihisarüstü – Aşiyan Funicular Line, which was started in 2017 and stopped in 2018 due to lack of financing. Saying, "We continue our work related to our areas of responsibility with the right people, with the right projects, with the right financing model," İmamoğlu said, referring to forest fires, and said, "The person living in the most remote village in this country and the person living in the city know who a forest belongs to. "I see the efforts of the Minister or higher officials to pass the responsibility to the municipalities, who made the headlines in the newspapers saying, "We will be aware of even a spark and we will intervene," as a deep weakness and an effort to deceive our citizens, but our nation will not be fooled by this.

Saying, “Our country has many different problems, we are experiencing many events that make us bored,” İmamoğlu said:

“The last fire issues, unfortunately, hurt us a lot as a nation. But on the one hand, I underline our areas of responsibility in terms of the necessity of life and the needs of our big cities, we continue our business with qualified people, the right projects and the right financing model. I hope that every institution will show the same interest and care to the works in its area of ​​responsibility. In other words, in this country, the person living in the most remote village and the person living in the city know to whom a forest belongs. Just as the problems of the city of Istanbul belong to us; If we have to show the ability to produce synchronous works such as subway and funicular works on time, finding financing, ordering a train on time and arriving while the construction is finished - and I think we represent this well, in the same way that the responsibility of forest belongs to the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry. I see it as a deep weakness that the Minister or higher officials, who made the headlines in the newspapers saying, "We will be aware of even a spark and we will intervene" and that it does not belong to the municipalities, is trying to pass the responsibility to the municipalities today. I see it as an attempt to deceive our citizens, but our nation will not be fooled by it. Currently, the forest organization, fire brigade, fire-related organizations, and our Istanbul Fire Brigade teams continue to serve in the region with tens of vehicles and hundreds of personnel. God bless them all."

“EVERYONE WILL DO THEIR JOB”

Expressing his wishes for the fires to end as soon as possible and for the burning areas to be protected, İmamoğlu said, “In urban life, which is our area of ​​responsibility, all our works are planned on time, with the right design, with the right budget, with the right people; We want to keep alive the period when everyone, from the contractor to the worker who makes the welding here, focuses on their job, does their job and does not deal with other jobs. Everyone will do their job. So my Head of Department will do his job. Sarıyer Mayor will do his job on the issues related to Sarıyer. I will do my job. Processes cannot be managed by acting by taking instructions from a person's mouth. This country has millions of talented, beautiful people. We achieve these beautiful things with those beautiful people. I think Istanbul should be proud and happy, as it has come to this day from an environment where there was lack of merit, decisions could not be made at the right time, and processes were not managed well. We will continue to make 16 million Istanbulites happy and not embarrass them. We are determined,” he said.