TÜGVA’s Torpedo in “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire”

This week’s agenda was the claim that the Turkish Youth Foundation (TÜGVA), known for its closeness to the government, helped some people to get jobs in institutions with references by keeping their credentials in a database. According to the documents revealed by journalist Metin Cihan, the people who wanted to be appointed entered the system where they wanted, and those deemed appropriate by the foundation officials were appointed to the institutions. Later, TÜGVA President Enis Eminoğlu admitted that the documents were correct and that they were backed up and leaked from inside.

This time, TÜGVA continues to be on the agenda with another torpedo claim. According to the claim of journalist Murat Ağırel, some of the guests who will participate in the Who Wants to be a Millionaire contest were torpedoed.

The details of the documents that journalist Murat Ağırel encountered in a file he examined are as follows:

Name of the examined file: Job tracking file. There are names in the file and the subject they are in charge of is stated. The date of assignment was 13 December 2016. The subject of the task is “The number of female participants who will participate in the Who Wants to be a Millionaire contest” and every Wednesday before noon, female participants were asked to register for the program, and “done” was written on the opposite side.

The answers received by the journalist, who re-examined the documents, are quite striking: Yes, I am a witness. People were leaving under the coordination of Assad Erdogan. If there was income, some adjustments were made so that some of it would go to the foundation. Suat Kır, who is currently working at EPİAŞ, was the Deputy Chairman at that time. Then Rabiya (Kazakh) Hanım was given this task. The reason Suat quit was because Yunus Becit’s wife participated in the competition. Suat Kır was Berat Albayrak’s chief of staff before.

When the contestants who appeared between the dates specified in the document are investigated, interesting names are encountered. Indeed, TÜGVA members and the spouse of the person who was a member of the board of directors participated in the competition program at close intervals.

The wife of Yunus Becit, the owner of Papillon Agency, which has been on the board of TÜGVA and does the job of many state banks, took part in the competition program on April 22, 2017.

Şerife Tuğçe Doğan, a member of TÜGVA, joined on March 11, 2017. In fact, it was specifically stated in the advertisement of the program that he was a member of TÜGVA.

Hicret Kızılkaya joined the program on March 25, 2017.

The journalist, who tried to reach the aforementioned people and foundation members on this claim, received a rejection from most people. What they could reach replied, “We will not make any statement other than the statement we have made.”

The journalist also published the results of extensive research on TÜGVA in his book “Spiral”. The e-mails sent to Berat Albayrak regarding TÜGVA, the family-run Turkuvaz Holding, the ATV owned by Turkuvaz, and the competition program broadcast there… It seems that the claim of torpedo will find wide repercussions in the entertainment program attended by thousands of people.

Sources: 1, 2