The new Finance Minister Zeren Mungan gave a rare press interview yesterday.
He covered a number of points and responded to questions.
Mr Mungan pointed out that all forms of funding from Turkey were regarded as a loan not as a grant.
Since 2009 Turkey had accounted for funds transfer to the TRNC as external debt.
In addition Mr Mungan stressed that his government had not proposed any changes to the economic protocol signed between the previous UBP government and Turkey. He said that given they only had 6 weeks in power as an interim government, it would not have been technically feasible even if they had wanted to.
Mr Mungan’s main focus was on the state of the TRNC’s finances.
He said that he had his first meeting at the finance ministry on Friday June 14th. At that meeting his team examined every cash deposit belonging to the government. This included cash as well as bank deposits for the police, Tapu and Tax office.
The meeting then looked at the cheques that the government had yet to cash and also at immediate bills they had to pay.
The net cash position was TL 20 million overdrawn and there was a further net TL 20 million owing between cheques received and those needing to be paid.
Mr Mungan said that all these numbers had been put on the ministry website the following day. However he had not tried to make political advantage of the toxic situation left by the UBP government. He said that he was a public finance specialist and that he had restricted himself to laying out the facts. His priorities were to keep the finances running as smoothly and efficiently as possible.
Mr Mungan reminded the press that the summary of all income and expenditure during the week would be displayed every Friday on the website.
