Istanbul Municipality report emphasizes soaring corruption, lack of transparent governance in Turkey

Duvar English

The Istanbul Planning Agency (IPA), affiliated with the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality, on Aug. 7 released a new report titled "Transparent Governance for a Transparent Society: Turkey's Transparency Report Card." The report thoroughly evaluates Turkey's transparency and accountability.

IPA President Dr. Buğra Gökce highlighted the report's findings, stating, "Turkey ranks 115th out of 180 countries in combating corruption. In terms of the rule of law, Turkey is in a worse position than 65 percent of all countries. To strengthen democracy and ensure fair public administration, higher levels of accountability, transparency, and rule of law are necessary."

The report emphasizes Turkey's significant loss of transparency according to the Transparency International Corruption Perceptions Index and the World Bank Governance Indicators.

The country has shown a consistent decline in its Freedom of Expression and Accountability metrics since 2008. In 2023, Turkey ranked in the worst quartile of countries at 23.19 percent. 

Turkey's position in the Corruption Perceptions Index has been declining since 2012. In the early 2010s, Turkey ranked in the 50s for combating corruption but fell to 115th place out of 180 countries by 2023. According to the 2023 Corruption Perceptions Index results, Turkey is among the countries that have lost the most points over the past decade.

In the Corruption Perceptions Index, Turkey ranked 18th out of the G20 countries, ahead of Russia and Mexico. It came 36th out of 37 OECD countries, ahead of only Mexico. It was 115th out of 180 countries globally.

The report allocated a chapter for transparency in the public procurement system. Accordingly, the proportion of public goods and services purchases conducted through open tender procedures has fallen from 74.60 percent to 46.66 since 2015. Meanwhile, the rate of negotiated tendering drastically increased from 7.86 to 36.28 percent. 

These figures indicate that over time, the public procurement system has rapidly moved away from transparency and competitiveness.

“In an environment lacking transparency and competitiveness, the risks of corruption in public procurement increase, competitiveness declines, and efficiency decreases,” noted the report. 

Since 2018, Turkey has not published tax expenditure reports. Detailed and public tax expenditure reports were necessary for a more transparent, accountable, and democratic society, held the report. 

With regard to public media spending, the state-run Press Advertisement Agency (BİK) has not made its spending public since 2020, which raised questions about the transparency of the government’s media spending. The massive increases in advertising expenses by public banks (ranging between 790 to 1400 percent hikes between 2020-2023) pointed to concerns about transparency in media financing.