PodcastGov't-run organ transplant project found to employ 1 person despite allocation of millions of liras funding
The Turkish Court of Accounts has said in a report that the government-run International Organ Transplant Network Project has failed to reach its objectives despite millions of liras having been spent on it. The auditing report said that project currently employs only one person despite having the ambitious goal of making Turkey a regional leader in organ transplantation and of establishing a network among 70 participating countries.
Duvar English
Turkey's International Organ Transplant Network Project (ITN), launched by the government-run Istanbul Development Agency in 2018, has failed to reach its objectives, according to the Turkish Court of Accounts' (TCA) auditing report.
The supreme audit institution said that the number of personnel employed for the project has decreased from 14 in 2018 to a mere one person in 2020.
“It is clear that the project network and center, which aim for 70 countries, cannot be managed with the contribution of one staff member working in the center,” ANKA news agency reported the TCA as saying.
Turkey launched the ITN Project in an attempt to establish a sustainable international collaboration to determine the current state of organ donation and transplantation in the participating countries. By 2019, a total of 4.9 million liras of funding had been allocated for the project.
The auditing report gave information with regards to the software system of the project through which participating countries would use a common database. The TCA report said that although the relevant software had been bought, Turkey failed to provide it to the service of participating countries.
“Therefore it is not possible to talk about the Transplant Network Database System, which was listed as one of the expected consequences of the project,” the auditing report said.
The project's current success level is not enough for it to contribute to health tourism, which was one of the objectives, said the report. Although the project duration has come to an end, the project's success level "has been quite limited,” the report said.