Dick Eastman Online
  Dick Eastman – 5/15/2002

Turkish Census Counted 3.6 Million Fake People

Local authorities seeking to boost their budgets resulted in Turkey counting at least 3.65 million non-existent people in a national census in 2000. "It has been established so far that 3,651,000 people were recorded as imaginary population," Sefik Yildizeli, the country's chief statistician, told reporters Thursday.

Officials acknowledge that the 2000 census, which reported a national population of 64,059,000, was distorted by fake counts at scores of municipalities, whose state budgets are tied to population size. Statisticians are trying to strip the results of the corrupted data and revise the figures.