Corner-cutting contractors sold buildings as safe that then collapsed, while officials offered permits and lax controls, says writer and academic Constanze Letsch
. Turkey’s justice minister, Bekir Bozdağ, vowed that “all those who are at fault will be held accountable”.
But this kind of greed and blatant profiteering are not solitary crimes. These residential complexes could not have been built without state-issued building permits and licences, without the approving signatures of nominally independent building inspectors, and without the necessary reports from laboratories doing quality control of construction materials.
Instead, it focused on massive infrastructure and construction projects as the main motor of economic growth, no matter the societal and environmental costs. From 2004 on, the government passed substantive legal and institutional reforms in the fields of construction, real estate, local governance and housing finance.
As a result, tens of thousands of people – often those who were marginalised or poor – have been evicted from their homes. Communities and solidarity networks have been destroyed to make space for luxury housing and other high-profit real estate. Urban renewal did little to make housing resilient against earthquakes and other disasters.
And not only that. While the state authorities encouraged unfettered development and construction, turning a blind eye to irregularities, the AKP critically weakened all independent expert oversight. Trade chambers were constantly disparaged as spoilsports, traitors, even terrorists for exposing construction flaws and opening court cases against problematic or dangerous projects. Laws
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