Turkish Presidency's public procurement budget surges 20-fold in first half of 2023 compared to entire 2022

Duvar English

In the initial half of 2023, the Presidential Complex of Turkey allocated 1.08 billion Turkish Liras ($39M) for public procurement, marking a 20-fold surge compared to the 45 million liras disbursed in 2022. According to Turkish Central Bank’s average exchange rate for 2022, Turkish presidency spent $2.7M in 2022.

This assessment is drawn from the analysis conducted by main opposition Republican People’s Party MP Ali Mahir Başarır based on the most recent report by the Public Procurement Authority. 

According to report, while the Presidency carried out 241 public procurement during the entire 2022, it carried out 306 only in the first half of 2023.

MP Başarır criticized the dramatic surge, "If you say that the reason for this increase is inflation, you will increase the expenses for pensioners, workers and civil servants at the same rate as you have increased the expenses for your palace. If you say there are additional expenses, how can you increase your spending while students could not find dormitories; retired, civil servants, workers were on the streets unable to pay their rent.”

Başarır also drew attention to the public procurement organized by all public institutions and stated that 39,811 public procurement were made in the first six months of 2023 and they costed 892 billion liras ($32.8B). A quarter of this amount was spent with 230 billion liras ($13.8B) in the first six months of 2022. 

Başarır stated that half of the tenders organized this year were made by closed procedures and that the details were not open to the public.

In 2022, the Turkish Presidency concluded the year with expenditures totaling more than five billion Turkish liras even though it had an initial budget of four billion liras. Notably, the daily expenditure of the Presidency rose to 14,694,000 liras during the same year.