Director of Communications Fahrettin Altun wrote an article titled “CIMER Revolution” for the micro blog platform Medium.
In this article, Altun highlighted the role of technology in shaping our lives as the world goes through a transformation, and said that Turkey would not lag behind. Altun stated that it was the primary duty of the state to facilitate the lives of citizens, who deserve the very best.
Noting that, in the past, people in Anatolia “bowed and scraped” before public officials, unable to find a party to address their problems and, even if they did, there was very little prospect of their problems being solved, Altun said: "Fortunately, these are all things of the past. In today’s Turkey, our citizens can communicate their problems, complaints and requests to relevant authorities without hesitation and fear. We have put into effect an exemplary information-complaint-request system with a view to better serving our people.”
Altun emphasized that the Presidency’s Communication Centre (CIMER) was established upon President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s instruction in order to provide the quickest and most effective response to requests, complaints and applications for information from the public, and continued:
"CIMER fulfils an essential function in strengthening the state-society relationship and serves our citizens with a worldwide respected system. Our citizens have the opportunity to communicate their advice, requests and complaints to the Presidency swiftly through the online CIMER system. Therefore, the state can involve citizens directly in the administration and facilitate an effective supervisory mechanism. Our citizens liked CIMER and integrated quickly with this user-friendly online information-complaint-request system."
"3 million 150 thousand applications expected to reach CIMER in 2019"
Altun reminded that BIMER, the predecessor of CIMER, received 129 thousand applications in 2006, 137 thousand in 2007, 1 million 124 thousand in 2014 and over 1 million 200 thousand in 2015, and said: "By the end of 2019, CIMER is expected to have received around 3 million 150 thousand applications. This figure corresponds to a 10% increase in applications compared to 2018."
Underlining that the world appreciated CIMER’s success and its contribution in state-citizen relations was acknowledged in the international arena, Altun told: "CIMER was chosen the ‘Best Project’ in the category of ‘Access to information and knowledge’ at the World Summit of Information Society organized by the United Nation’s International Telecommunication Union in April. CIMER’s championship once again showed the value of our work."
Altun recalled that CIMER also won the ‘Golden World Awards for Excellence” in the category of “Public Relations” in July at the award ceremony of International Public Relations Association (IPRA), which is regarded as the Oscars of public relations, he noted the following:
"CIMER, the honour of the Directorate of Communications, will continue to work to make sure that necessary measures are taken to strengthen the bond between our citizens and state and to provide a better public service. It is not easy to throw away the remnants of the old Turkey, especially to destroy the awkward public service mentality that underrates the citizens. However, Turkey continues to change and transform. The public service mentality that throws our citizens’ petitions into trash bins without reading is now a thing of the past. Using state-of-the-art technology, Directorate of Communications will continue to pioneer an innovative public service mentality and to set a model for the world."