Investment on MOBESE for instance are also counted as public expenditure.

Recently the Honorable PM of Turkey, Tayyip Erdoğan, visited Mardin, I guess. What happened was what normally happens in a small town visited by the PM, in the same order as it always has. The Honorable PM naturally will deliver a couple of speeches, which is the main point indeed. And at that exact point, Mr. Erdoğan said, "We have made an investment in your city for the new surveillance system, the Mobile Electronic System Integration Project (MOBESE)." And he went on to talk about other public expenditure items. It was quite surreal. So today let me argue that "MOBESE does not count." If you wonder what I mean, please read on.

On this last day of the year, let me focus on the "silence of the east," as I attempted to talk about a few days ago. First, a quick summary of the previous discussion: If you map the provinces with five or more firms on the 1000 largest industrial enterprises list by the Istanbul Chamber of Commerce, you will see eastern Turkey, from Artvin and Kars in the north and Mardin and Hakkari in the south, is totally empty. In the current milieu where the Kurdish issue has progressed to solution upon open debates, we had better gaze at this emptiness, at the regional inequality problem. This emptiness I believe is a larger problem than the "Kurdish issue.'" I think this is exactly what will carry the administrative restructuring debates beyond rhetoric towards a real solution.

Why doesn't the east have industry? It is evident that what is in question in eastern Anatolia as a whole, an area which lacks the capability set the industry requires, that regional inequalities exist in economic and social terms. When you mark the provinces with five or more industrial enterprises, what you see will be a map of regional economic disparity. This is associated closely with human development. The reason for the lack of industrial enterprises is closely related to the life circumstances offered by the city. I guess it is clear at this point.

But it gets complicated from this point on. The way to eliminate regional disparities is to expand the city's capability set. This includes the number of schools and movie theatres, social infrastructure and habitability of the city as well as its physical infrastructure. If a government is dedicated to eliminating regional disparities, it has to support the laggard cities through public expenditures.

Does the government channel public expenditures to offset regional development disparities and to expand the capabilities of the laggard cities? The answer is no. TEPAV governance analysts have been measuring this on the basis of per capita public expenditures. If you examine per capita public expenditures in association with the capabilities enjoyed in a certain city, what you will see is that Turkey has been making higher per capita public expenditure in cities that are already developed and which enjoy a wide set of capabilities. Public expenditure is not used as a tool to ease regional disparities. The pattern of public expenditures is not devised to remedy the emptiness in the east. This obviously is wrong.

Back to basics: The definition of per capita public expenditures also is incorrect. Investment in MOBESE, for instance, also is counted as public expenditure. The contribution it makes to the expansion of the capability set is quite limited. Saying "we are establishing the MOBESE system for your benefit" is the same as saying in a city which suffers from frequent electricity cuts such as Mardin, "we have built a plastic production plant, but if the electricity goes you have to clean the plant a couple of more times a day." The attempt makes no contribution to solve the essential problem. In this line, "MOBESE doesn't count." Making expenditures that will serve the purpose is as important as the expenditure in itself. Happy New Year!

This commentary was published in Radikal daily on 31.12.2010