Red Tape in Action

I will be back with a proper post on the budget soon, but let me share with you a small proof of Turkish red tape/bureaucracy.

Below are all the calls I made to the Turkish energy watchdog, Energy Market Regulation Board, or EPDK. I was trying to understand a change to the regulations regarding the electricity taxes we use at our family-owned and operated SME.

BTW, I got no answer at several of the numbers, so I should have made at least a couple of dozen calls in total. But all the people I talked to were extremely courteous, and when finally reached the right guy at the end, he was very helpful even though he could not solve my problem.

Speaking of EPDK, I saw at their web site a saying by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk (the founder of modern Turkey and cause of great pains to Antonia Banderas some time ago), which I had never heard of before:

Markets are not to be tempered with unless absolutely necessary, but no market should be let run freely. Sorry, this is the best I could do, but feel free to offer your own translation as a comment to this post.

WOW, this has just become my favorite Ataturk saying. But I am starting to think increasingly, based on my work at our family business, that many markets are unfortunately running amok in Turkey. More on that later, but the key words, as a reminder to myself when the time comes, are: Alcoholic beverages (shit, I forgot to address a reader response on that), electricity, banking- I can see some of my friends smiling, as they know the nonconstructive discussions I have been having with the latter for the past few weeks....