Turkey's Energy Ministry Criticized for Withholding Data on Subsidies and Disconnections

Turkey's Energy and Natural Resources Ministry has been criticized for withholding crucial data regarding energy subsidies, household disconnections, and debt collection practices. In response to a written inquiry from Aşkın Genç, a CHP Kayseri Member of Parliament, the ministry provided only limited information, failing to detail the total cost of electricity and natural gas support between 2020 and 2025.

“

Energy support is not just a percentage written on a screen. The real issue is how much support is on the citizen's bill, how much this support costs the public, how many households are left without electricity due to debt, and in which provinces this picture is worsening.

The ministry also did not disclose the per-unit subsidy amounts for residential, industrial, and commercial consumers. While it stated that residential natural gas users received a 45% subsidy and electricity users received an average of 55%, it did not quantify the monetary value of these subsidies on citizens' bills, the distribution of support across consumer groups, or the total burden on the public budget.

Limited data released by the ministry for 2025 revealed that 23 out of every 10,000 electricity subscribers experienced service disconnections due to debt, and 14 out of every 10,000 faced legal action. However, the ministry did not answer specific questions about the number of households affected by disconnections, the concentration of these issues in certain provinces, the average duration of outages, or the recovery rate in debt collection processes.

“

Giving a percentage is easy; what is important for the public is to explain the real cost behind that percentage and the real social picture.

Genç criticized the ministry's response, stating it obscured the reality of energy poverty. He emphasized that energy support is more than a percentage on a bill; it involves the actual financial relief for citizens, the cost to the public, the number of disconnected households, and the severity of the problem in different regions. Genç pointed out that the ministry's refusal to provide total figures for disconnected households makes the scale of the problem invisible, even if the percentage appears small. He argued that the state's role is not to conceal crises but to address them transparently.

“

Even if this number is tried to be shown as small, every rate means real households whose electricity is cut off, children left in the dark, shopkeepers who cannot work, citizens struggling to meet basic living needs for heating and life. Moreover, the Ministry does not even tell us how many households this corresponds to. When you give a rate and hide the total number, you also make the magnitude of the problem invisible.