It wasn't an exception, it was the norm... The Ministry of Transport has been adding 'properly' clauses to contracts!

Minister of Transport and Infrastructure Abdulkadir Uraloğlu’s travel to Germany on a private jet belonging to Rönesans Holding to attend the International Transport Forum Summit in Leipzig sparked a debate, which has now revealed that this practice has been ongoing for a long time and that special conditions have been added to contracts. 

BirGün columnist Nurcan Gökdemir, in her article titled "They added a 'properly host' clause", wrote that this practice has been going on for many years and that the Court of Accounts (Sayıştay) has revealed it with all the evidence. 

Gökdemir stated the following in the relevant section of her article:

PERSONNEL TO BE SENT WILL BE HOSTED 'PROPERLY'!

"Let us convey the findings by stating that this practice was included in all its details in the audit reports that the Court of Accounts submitted to Parliament in 2019 and 2020, and that not a single word has been said about it in recent years.

We see in the reports that this practice, which Court of Accounts auditors described project by project, was not an exceptional or limited habit; that public administrations recklessly took advantage of provisions inserted into contracts to obtain luxury vehicles from companies; that hundreds of employees were sent on domestic and international trips at the expense of the so-called company; and that hundreds of electronic items, including mobile phones, were procured without any records being kept. Let us also emphasize that the auditors of the Court of Accounts determined that these were costs borne not by the state but by the companies, and that these amounts were added to the tender prices and transferred from the public budget to the companies through progress payments.

However, among these findings, there is a contract provision that makes one say, 'This much shamelessness.' The Ministry even wrote a condition into the contract it signed with companies that the personnel to be sent on trips must be 'properly hosted'."

IT HAS TURNED INTO A GENERAL PRACTICE

These findings, which BirGün also reported on in the years they were published, came back to the public agenda once again with Uraloğlu's trip on the Rönesans plane. After this came to light, the public began to ask, "Is this the first time it's happening, are there other ministries doing this, and was it happening during the terms of previous ministers?"

Answers to most of these questions are found among the findings of the Court of Accounts auditors. Let us explain what follows with the findings in the Court of Accounts' 2019 and 2020 audit reports:

'GIFTS' HAVE NO RECORDS

‘‘A large number of automobiles, office tools, and equipment were procured. A large portion of the automobiles and the entirety of the luxury vehicles are used by the Ministry's central organization. Therefore, the procured tools and equipment are aimed at meeting the general and continuous needs of the central organization rather than the execution of the contracted work. Furthermore, the fact that movable property records are not kept despite the allocation of office tools and equipment to the administration constitutes a separate problem. Uses made without movable property records and movable delivery documents can be evaluated within the scope of the article titled 'Prohibition of Accepting Gifts and Providing Benefits' of the Regulation on Ethical Behavior Principles for Public Officials and Application Procedures and Principles.

Automobile procurements are also not in compliance with the legislation due to the nature of the vehicles. The legislation clearly states that, except for a limited number of offices and services, foreign-origin vehicles cannot be acquired, cannot be rented through service procurement, or cannot be purchased by any other method, and that 50 percent of the vehicles must be domestic. The administration procures vehicles that it cannot obtain with general budget appropriations by using the 'other matters' section of construction and consultancy work contracts.”

CONTRARY TO ETHICAL RULES

“It is contrary to the legislation regarding the Ethics Agreement and Ethical Behavior Principles. Welcome, farewell, and celebration gifts, scholarships, travel, free accommodation, and gift vouchers received from those who have a business, service, or interest relationship with the institution where one is employed are within the scope of the gift-taking prohibition.”

96 VEHICLES, 25 OF WHICH ARE LUXURY, WERE PURCHASED

In one year, 96 passenger vehicles, 25 of which were in the luxury class, 8 minibuses, 207 computers, 115 laptops, 165 tablets, 255 mobile phones with lines, 60 digital phones with lines, 34 LCD televisions, 23 projectors, 129 printers/photocopiers, 8 binding machines, 12 paper shredders, 6 UPS units, and 14 digital cameras were purchased. 

DOMESTIC/INTERNATIONAL TRIPS

Contracts including domestic and international trips were signed within the scope of the following tenders:

Halkalı Metro Construction/Gayrettepe Metro Construction Tender (Bargaining): Technical inspection trip including 250 man-days abroad and unlimited domestically.

Gayrettepe/Halkalı Metro Works Consultancy Tender (Bargaining): Inspection trip including 600 man-days abroad and unlimited domestically.

Kızılay-AKM Metro Construction Tender (Bargaining): Technical inspection trip of 50 man-days abroad.

All food, accommodation, and transportation expenses of the personnel participating in these trips were covered by the companies.

HOST 'PROPERLY'

The fact that the trip condition was written together with the condition that “the hosting must be done properly” in the Bandırma-Bursa and Mersin-Adana high-speed train projects and the Bursa City Hospital construction tender made people say, “Enough.”

THE COST IS FROM THE BUDGET

Court of Accounts auditors also gave the following response to the claims that these perks were provided from the company's coffers:

“The inclusion of these elements in the 'Other Matters' section of the contracts, the fact that no bid was received in the unit price proposal table for the requested vehicles, equipment, personnel, travel, and accommodation, and therefore that no price/cost was formed for these elements at the tender stage, may lead to the misconception that the contractor will provide these works free of charge. However, when all elements are examined, it should be known that the requested matters involve a significant cost and that contractors submit their bids in a way that includes all these cost elements. Therefore, it is clear that the payments made for all these elements requested in the contracts are covered by general budget appropriations through the progress payments of the relevant work.”

The greatest evidence of how public and, moreover, limited resources are plundered by the bureaucrats of the AKP governments and used for luxury and ostentation is in the lines of these reports. The reports also show how these tenders, which turned out to be inefficient and expensive, are the product of a complicity, and what kind of plunder order was established in exchange for luxury vehicles, mobile phones, and trips.