Exceptions have become the rule in palace tenders

Over 200 amendments were made to the Public Procurement Law during the AKP government. The 2018 amendment opened the door to "non-tender and unsupervised" spending. After Recep Tayyip Erdoğan was elected President, the article allowing for non-tender exception purchases was revised.

When the way was opened for AKP President Erdoğan to decide on exempt purchases, there was a huge increase in defense spending made with public resources.

85 PERCENT WITHOUT TENDER

The Public Procurement Report for the first half of 2025 revealed that 85 percent of the total amount of public procurement carried out by the Presidency consisted of expenditures made outside the scope of Public Procurement Law No. 4734. The Presidency made only 39 of the total 679 purchases of goods and services through tenders.

The Presidency purchased goods and services worth 2.913 billion Turkish Lira between January and June 2025. Only 359 million Turkish Lira of these purchases were made through tenders.

The Presidency reportedly made 2.494 billion Turkish Lira in purchases under the exemption, which has been publicly criticized for being used as a "rent transfer tool." The total amount of goods and services purchased through Direct Procurement, one of the non-tender procurement methods, was recorded as 59.402 million Turkish Lira.

2.4 BILLION TL WITH EXCEPTION

The striking increase in Presidential appointments made through exemptions, without a tender, over the years has also attracted attention. The breakdown by year between January 2019 and June 2025 is as follows:

• 2020: 25 million 985 thousand TL

• 2021: 13 million 788 thousand TL

• 2022: 727 million 798 thousand TL

• 2023: 1 billion 308 million 434 thousand TL

• 2024: 4 billion 652 million 235 thousand TL

• 2025 (January-June): 2 billion 494 million 324 thousand TL