“There is no diversity of voices” in the north’s media, opposition party CTP ‘MP’ Sami Ozuslu said on Wednesday night.

He was speaking at the north’s ‘parliamentary’ finance committee as deliberations over the ‘state’ budget continue, with the evening’s discussion centring on the budget to be allocated to the north’s supreme broadcasting council (YYK), its media watchdog.

“The media, which has been taken over by certain interest groups, cannot write or say whatever it wants,” he added, while also saying the advertising revenue brought in by many media outlets is “very low”.

The YYK has been allocated a budget of just over 20.6 million TL (€568,061), with its chairman Feyzi Hansel telling the committee that the money will be used to make “technological infrastructure investments”.

He was questioned on what fellow CTP ‘MP’ Salahi Sahiner described as “non-compliance” with the relevant laws on the part of the north’s public broadcaster BRT, but explained that BRT is subject to its own laws.

BRT’s budget was also discussed at the committee meeting, with Ozuslu saying that promises made to BRT employees “have not been kept”, and referring to his intervention at the same committee meeting last year, when he said “80 per cent of BRT employees are unhappy and unmotivated.”

In particular, he said, BRT employees approaching retirement age are “suffering” and waiting for payouts.

Similarly to last year, he also criticised BRT’s political stance, saying “society does not need a BRT which broadcasts in a partisan manner”, and adding that opposition politicians and activists were “not given enough space” by the broadcaster.

Sahiner then described BRT as a “monument of shame” and said, “BRT should be given the value it deserves in accordance with its broadcasting principles.”

BRT employees’ union Bay-Sen chairman Ibrahim Kanat then spoke to the committee, saying workers “have been waiting for a law for 32 years” to ensure better collective labour conditions, and added that social insurance payments “are not being properly paid”.

The committee then added an amendment to the budget to allow retroactive social insurance payments to be made, and then passed the budget, which stands at 1.6 billion TL (€45.7m) with a majority vote.

The north’s electricity authority Kib-Tek was also supposed to have its budget discussed this week but failed to present a budget to the committee on time.

Also on the agenda was the budget of the foundations administration (Evkaf), which has been allocated a little over 500m TL (€13.8m) to spend next year.

Evkaf was criticised by CTP ‘MP’ Sila Usar Incirli for “deviating from its goals” and “engaging in activities and spending money” outside of its reported stated aims.

Evkaf general manager Mustafa Tumer said new investments have been made, and that therefore, “security and cleaning expenses” have increased, driving up the cost of the budget.