Thursday, October 6, 2011
BAGHDAD- Anatolia News Agency
A minority of Turkish firms investing in Iraq operations, especially contractors in the construction sector, are doing unsuccessful building, harming both Turkey’s image and its employees, a Turkish envoy says
A considerable number of Turkish firms have invested in the construction sector in the war-destroyed Iraq, but some of them turned out to be unsuccessful, Kırkın says. AP photo
A small number of Turkish contractors doing business in Iraq, usually insufficient in terms of experience and morals, are causing big problems there, particularly for the Turkish workers, according to Turkey’s ambassador to Baghdad.
Such entities are first regarded prestigious for the fact of being Turkish firms, Metin Kırkın, Turkey’s trade counselor in Baghdad said in a recent interview. “They are assigned work from certain governor’s offices, which unfortunately turn out to be unsuccessful in the end, as these firms are insufficient,” he said, adding that the number of inefficient companies was rather small.
“However, even if one single firm is unsuccessful it would pose a serious problem for us,” he said. Some Turkish contractors and firms who are assigned work in Iraq do business for a couple of months and then become problematic, according to Kırkın.
Preventing such a phenomenon is crucial so that the image of Turkish firms is not spoiled, Kırkın said. “Being a Turkish [firm or contractor] here means your products are of good quality and reliable. We should not weaken this [image].”
Employees harmed
Failure of a small number of contractors to finish assignments in Iraq is especially harmful for employees, according to Kırkın. Workers who have moved to Iraq with these firms to earn money and send it back to their families in Turkey were the main injured party, he said.
The number of victimized workers was relatively high, Kırkın said. “The embassy tries to protect the rights of hundreds of Turkish employees and sometimes has to send them back to Turkey. Thus, employees must research their employers’ identity and capacity to do the job before moving here.”
Violated rights
Alaattin Aşkın, who moved from the northeastern province of Düzce to work in Iraq, said the people who had brought him to Iraq had not taken care of him. A group of people pretending to have established a firm in Iraq had managed to bring naive and simple minded people to Iraq and then violated their rights, Aşkın said.
“We came to Iraq on a 10-day visa and were promised that we would have the right to social insurance, residency permits and would be free to travel throughout the country. None of the promises were kept. We have asked authorities to protect our rights,” Aşkın said.
Meanwhile, Kırkın said a group of Turkish workers who had been working illegally for a Turkish firm assigned to construct a public building in Iraq’s southern province of Nasiriyah, had not been paid for three months. The workers then applied to the Turkish Embassy in Baghdad, asking to be returned to their country, he added.
Sedat Ekinci, one of the workers of the company, has spent 10 days in prison, as the visa he had taken at the Habur border crossing was not recognized by the administration and he had thus been considered a fugitive, Kırkın said. Ekinci managed to get out of prison only after paying a bribe sent by his family from Turkey, he added.
Embassy authorities also said they had sent some 40 victimized workers from the Iraqi province of Kut back to Turkey in the past two weeks.
Thursday, October 6, 2011
http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/n.php? ... 2011-10-06
