Head of Turkey's statistical authority replaced for the fourth time in two years

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President and Justice and Development Party (AKP) Chair Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has appointed Prof. Sait Erdal Dinçer as the new head of the Turkish Statistical Institute (TurkStat).

The presidential decree for the appointment was published in the Official Gazette today (March 2).

The appointment of Erdal, an academic at Marmara University's Faculty of Economic, marks the fourth change of the TurkStat chair since April 2019.

Mehmet Aktaş served as the acting TurkStat chair between 2016 and 2019. He was succeeded in April 2019 by Yinal Yağan, who was dismissed in May 2020.

Cahit Şirin assumed the role after Yağan and was replaced with Ahmet Kürşat Dosdoğru as the acting TurkStat head on February 15.

The accuracy of the TurkStat figures, especially about unemployment and inflation rates, has been disputed by opposition parties, unions and economists in recent years.

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About Sait Erdal Dinçer

Dinçer is an academic who extensively worked on data management and data mining.

He studied geological engineering at İstanbul Technical University (İTÜ) between 1986 and 1990 and completed his master's degree in management engineering at the same university.

He also took a master's degree in econometrics at Marmara University in 1995 and completed his doctorate in the same department.

He has been an academic at the university's department of econometrics since 2005.

Dinçer has 26 scientific articles published in national and international scientific journals, 12 books and book chapters published by national and international publishing houses, and seven papers presented in international symposiums. (HA/VK)