Kemal Unakıtan (February 14, 1946 – October 12, 2016) was the Minister of Finance of Turkey from November 2002 to May 2009 and a

Member of Parliament A member of parliament (MP) is the representative in parliament of the people who live in their electoral district. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, this term refers only to members of the lower house since upper house members o ...

for

Istanbul ) , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = 34000 to 34990 , area_code = +90 212 (European side) +90 216 (Asian side) , registration_plate = 34 , blank_name_sec2 = GeoTLD , blank_i ...

of the Justice and Development Party. He was born in

Edirne Edirne (, ), formerly known as Adrianople or Hadrianopolis ( Greek: Άδριανούπολις), is a city in Turkey, in the northwestern part of the province of Edirne in Eastern Thrace. Situated from the Greek and from the Bulgarian borders ...

. Previously he was a board member of the Family Finance Group. During his tenure as minister of finance Unakitan presided over a number of situations primarily the Treasury's need to raise funds (!) at a time when Turkey had a large national debt and was failing to collect taxes to cover it. Unakıtan therefore * sold forestry land to raise funds for the treasury * raised fuel duties and other indirect taxation plus * imposed extra duties and payments such as his "permanent earthquake fund" On March 7, 2008, Unakıtan received the Finance Minister of the Year Award from the business magazine

The Banker ''The Banker'' is an English-language monthly international financial affairs publication owned by ''The Financial Times'' Ltd. and edited in London, United Kingdom. The magazine was first published in January 1926 through founding Editor, Bren ...

. He died on October 12, 2016 after a prolonged illness.

Books

Nedim Şener Nedim Şener (; born 28 November 1966 in Germany) is a Turkish writer and journalist who has written for the ''Milliyet'' (since 1994) and '' Posta'' newspapers. He has received a number of journalism awards, including the Turkish Journalists' As ...

(2005), ''Fırsatlar Ülkesinde Bir Kemal Abi'' (A Kemal Abi in A Land of Opportunities)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Unakitan, Kemal 1946 births 2016 deaths People from Edirne Ministers of Finance of Turkey Justice and Development Party (Turkey) politicians Deputies of Istanbul Deputies of Eskişehir Members of the 23rd Parliament of Turkey Members of the 22nd Parliament of Turkey Gazi University alumni Members of the 60th government of Turkey Deaths from cancer in Turkey Deaths from prostate cancer