According to the Anatolia news agency, since assuming his position, Labor and Social Security Minister Ömer Dinçer has been working to increase the efficiency of the ministry, developing a more effective model for its functioning. Convening hours-long meetings with ministry bureaucrats on issues related to timeliness, he reportedly told them, “All of our citizens must leave the ministry with smiles on their faces or else we cannot say that we are successful.”
Among the first issues he tackled was the long-standing problem of work permit applications for foreigners, known among expatriates in Turkey as a long, cumbersome and oblique process with ever-uncertain and changing requirements and outcomes. Work permit-related processes are among the most criticized of all the work the Labor and Social Security Ministry carries out. In particular, foreign investors have continually criticized the process of obtaining work permits critical to their Turkey operations, which sometimes lead potential investors to turn away from Turkey altogether.
Dinçer established a commission headed by an academic to deal with this issue as soon as he took office. The committee has reportedly completed its preliminary studies and issued a report of recommendations to Dinçer that, upon implementation, should make for a much smoother work permit process.
The measures outlined in the report include the respective decrease and increase in the number of certain branches within the divisions that process work permit applications, enabling better service in some areas and decreasing bureaucracy in others. In addition, more personnel have been allocated to the permit processing divisions in order to ensure that a reasonable timeframe is adhered to in evaluating applications. The report also recommends a number of changes to streamline the process and make sure that little is left to individual employees in terms of evaluating applications, instead making very clear the criteria required for permits.
Also, the measures include improvements in working conditions and office environments for employees involved in the permit-issuing process and the publishing on the Internet of certain information regarding the work permit application process, such as the required payments.
Dinçer told the Anatolia news agency that the new system to be implemented would reduce bureaucratic obstacles to a minimum and that he would be personally following the developments to ensure the new system works and is enforced. “Even though the law gives us a period of three months, with the new measures, we will respond either positively or negatively to permit requests within one month,” he said. The new system is planned for implementation in 2010.
