The relationships exposed by the austerity circular

The Presidential Circular on Austerity Measures numbered 2024/7, published in the Official Gazette on May 17, 2024, has caused quite a stir in the public eye.

While the most notable issue in the eight-page circular is the removal of shuttle services for civil servants, the circular actually exposes many unethical relationships.

For example, in the second paragraph of the general principles section, the statement "they shall not include elements unrelated to the subject of procurement or construction, such as the provision of vehicles, machinery, or equipment for use by the administration, in tender specifications and contracts" is included.

Under normal circumstances, such a regulation is unnecessary, as it is assumed that every public official would be sensitive about not procuring items that are not related to the work, either implicitly or explicitly, by including them in the specifications, thereby avoiding elements not priced within the tender offer and subject. In such cases, which usually occur in tenders conducted via the bargaining method, the public oversight mechanism is disabled because the specifications are not shared with the public.

This issue recently came to the agenda when the Minister of Transport and Infrastructure, Abdulkadir Uraloğlu, used a private jet belonging to a contractor firm for his trip to Germany.

According to the statement made by the Minister, Article 31 of the specifications prepared within the scope of the work carried out by the contractor firm contains the provision that "expenses related to domestic and international training and symposiums shall be covered by the parties free of charge," and the Minister is benefiting from this free of charge.

But is the Minister really benefiting from this service for free, or has the contractor firm already added this expense to the service cost when submitting its bid for the tender? The answer, of course, is that the cost of the private jet used by the Minister is included in the price of this work, which is financed by our taxes.

Another point is the provision in the second paragraph of the section on the Acquisition and Use of Official Vehicles, which states that "electric vehicles may be purchased in accordance with the relevant legislation within the scope of public procurement guarantees." As is known, with Article 7 of the Presidential decree published in the Official Gazette dated December 27, 2019, a guarantee was given that 30,000 TOGG vehicles would be purchased by the public until December 31, 2035. While vehicle purchases are almost completely restricted by the public austerity circular, TOGG purchases will continue at full speed.

It is worth reminding that although TOGG is promoted as domestic and national, it is a private enterprise, and the profits of TOGG go to its investors, not the state. Every kind of support provided by the state, including the losses arising from the interest-free loans currently given for TOGG, is covered by the state, but the profit is transferred entirely to the private sector.

Again, in the fourth paragraph of the same section, the statement "vehicles belonging to foundations, associations, funds, banks, unions, firms, individuals, and similar organizations and/or persons shall not be used by public institutions and organizations in any way without permission" is included. This statement is also a confession of another abuse.

Today, public institutions transfer their own revenues to a company (State Economic Enterprises), foundation, or association (service strengthening foundation or association) they have established and control, and from there, they finance official cars, representation expenses, and accommodation expenses, which should actually belong to the public, using money that should be public, without being subject to any legislative restrictions.

Similarly, as we mentioned above, the use of vehicles belonging to contractors by the public by adding them to tender specifications or in a completely unofficial manner, and having contractors finance certain expenses that the legislation does not allow, has now become commonplace.

The issue of personnel shuttles is a comedy in itself. Perhaps the item in the Austerity Circular that will provide the least savings is personnel shuttles. Except for personnel whose high security is the responsibility of the state, such as soldiers, police, courthouse personnel, and prison staff, there are almost no personnel shuttles in the provinces.

Almost all personnel shuttles are used in a few metropolitan cities and even by the central organization. However, their cost is not as high as discussed in the public eye, because while some organizations provide shuttle services with their own vehicles, some organizations, such as the Ministry of Treasury and Finance, have not provided personnel shuttle services for years. Therefore, it is not possible to say that the removal of personnel shuttles will provide significant savings.

In our article, by touching upon issues that occupy a very small part of the eight-page austerity circular, we tried to explain how many unethical, and sometimes even extra-legal, transactions are exposed by a circular aimed at providing savings, and that the state actually ignores them.

As long as those in public office are concerned with gaining benefits or prestige, directly or indirectly, no matter how many austerity circulars are issued, it will be of no use.