Security researchers, watchdog groups call for military spending transparency in Turkey

April 13, 2014 by IPB

A global security research organization has added its voice to a collection of government budget watchdog groups in calling for Turkey to make its military budget smaller and more transparent.

In a report authored by Nurhan Yenturk, a scholar at Istanbul Bilgi University, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) showed that as of 2012 Turkey’s military expenditure rate (2.35 percent of GDP) ranked 15th globally among countries with highest military spending rates.

The study covers military expenditures from 2006-2012 and forecasts the figures for 2013-2015. It draws attention to the need for transparency and accountability in military expenditures with further parliamentary oversight and auditing, while it also calls for a reduction in the size of the army and a decrease in spending on personnel.

The conclusions echo those of the Public Expenditures Monitoring Platform, a group of more than 50 civil society organisations in Turkey, which has monitored public expenditures since 2010. The group has drawn attention to increases in health, education and welfare programmes that could be achieved by trimming the military budget.

Yenturk said that in 14 of the 16 years from 1988 to 2004, military spending outpaced the combined amounts spent on the Ministry of Education, the Council of Higher Education (YOK) and public universities.

“After 2004, education spending raised above military spending. This long period of high military spending obviously had created a cumulative impact on current problems such as a growing unskilled labour force and low levels of labour productivity,” Yenturk told SES Türkiye.

The report revealed that the ratio of the military expenditures has decreased since 2001.

“The 2001 economic crisis and the rule of the Justice and Development Party [AKP] since late 2002 are main factors affecting the decrease. But after 2006 until 2014, except for 2009, the downward trend has stopped and the ratio of military spending to GDP remained constant,” Yenturk said.

Sirin Unal and Oguz Kagan Koksal, AKP members of the parliamentary National Defence Commission, did not respond to SES Türkiye’s requests for comment.

According to Yenturk, a decrease in military spending would create room for paying a significant number of uninsured citizens’ general health contributions by public support, while also helping households living in poverty.

Due to a legislative change in 2010, the Turkish Court of Accounts audits military spending on parliament’s behalf. However, the publication of auditing reports on defence, security and intelligence institutions is restricted by secrecy rules, undermining transparency as well as parliamentary and civilian monitoring.

A new law passed by the parliament in late February gave the military new economic privileges. All military facilities, officers’ clubs, hostels, training centres, as well as military museums and military clubs will be exempted from corporate taxes as well as real estate property taxes. The army will be also allowed to allocate its properties to foreign companies and organisations either by charging a fee or free of charge.

Yenturk added that there is no meaningful performance-based auditing to assess the quantity and quality of public institutions’ services and to prevent them from wasting resources. But she did point out the contributions of the Public Expenditures Monitoring Platform, which sent a letter to parliament in 2012 comparing military and social expenditures. The Education Reform Initiative (ERG) under Istanbul’s Sabanci University is a member of the Public Expenditures Monitoring Platform.

Emre Uckardesler, a policy analyst at ERG, told SES Türkiye that although the public expenditures devoted to education in Turkey have regularly increased during the 2000s, the current figures are still far from sufficient.

“The OECD [Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development] average for public education expenditures is around 5.5 percent of the GDP. Turkey is still behind the OECD average,” Uckardesler said. “UNESCO recommends that countries with similar economic development levels to Turkey need to spend around 6 percent of the GDP on public education. By that criterion, Turkish figures are even less satisfactory.”

“In Turkey education strategic plans and education budgets need to be prepared through a more participatory process. The education budget is largely prepared by public officials and politicians, with little involvement by stakeholders. Similarly, the level of accountability to public stakeholders needs to increase along with better feedback and monitoring mechanisms,” he added.

Uckardesler also said there are signs of progress, as public schools started to register and report their budgets via electronic database, and the national school funding mechanism is becoming more simplified.

“Thus, it is anticipated that in the near future funds allocated to individual schools will be more in line with and adequate to meet their needs,” he added.

The SIPRI report states that while details about some military expenditures are available online — like the budget of the Ministry of Defence, or expenditures of General Staff, Gendarmerie General Command or the Defence Ministry’s Undersecretariat for the Defence Industry (SSM) — access to information about other issues is incomplete and sometimes impossible to find.

The Defence Industry Support Fund, the Mechanical and Chemical Industry Corporation, military research and developments, and financial transfers to northern Cyprus for military purposes are partly disclosed to the greater public. The expenditure information about the Foundation to Strengthen the Turkish Armed Forces — which establishes partnerships with private defence companies and is one of their shareholders — and the pensions of retired army personnel are beyond oversight or are highly restricted.

The SIPRI report also said the Defence Ministry should take on oversight of the Office of the Chief of General Staff and adds that “there should not be a separate judicial mechanism within the military.”

Lale Sariibrahimoglu, a military affairs expert and columnist, said the lack of transparency and accountability in the defence sector is one of the main reasons why military expenditures are so high.

“Despite being a NATO member, Turkey has not ensured full democratic control of its military,” Sariibrahimoglu told SES Türkiye. “If the transparency and a mechanism of accountability are established for the military expenditures, the ratio will decrease because the authorities would begin to allocate financial resources into the right places and in more smart ways due to the concern of giving its account to the greater public.”

Sariibrahimoglu added that oversight of military expenditures is an important component of good governance, but Turkey has had high military spending since the establishment of the republic, and that the decisions have been beyond civilian and parliamentary control.

Sariibrahimoglu also said the main criterion for any country’s military expenditures is its threat assessment.

“However, a significant part of these evaluations is always kept secret from the civilian oversight in Turkey, while in Western democracies and in NATO countries, such assessments are shared with the public in general traits by the decision makers,” Sariibrahimoglu said. “Accordingly, military forces are deployed in a specific location and they are re-structured in line with the external threats.”

According to the latest figures of NATO, the ratio of military expenditures to GDP is nearly 2.9 percent in all of NATO’s 27 member countries, while in Turkey this ratio is at 2.4 percent.

“Especially since 2004, Turkey began to re-design its defence policies by cancelling some of the joint projects with the foreign companies in order to build its national battle tank and attack helicopter by its own resources. However, if the transparency and the accountability became the rule, such domestic projects would be much more resource-efficient,” Sariibrahimoglu said.

She added that the authorities use the justification of “regional threats” as a motto to easily increase their military expenditures out of public oversight.

“If the public is much more informed about the extent and the content of these expenditures, they will, for instance, start to interrogate why Turkey has begun buying only recently, for instance, mine resistant vehicles to use in the fight against terrorism despite a three-decade long low intensity warfare and why it hasn’t prioritised counter-terrorism projects over the purchase of conventional weapons,” Sariibrahimoglu said.

Turkish officials have repeatedly drawn attention to the need for ending terrorism throughout the country in order to decrease military spending.

Last year, Binali Yildirim, the former minister of transport, maritime affairs and communications, told reporters that the fight against terrorism in Turkey contributed to high military spending.

“Because of terror, we wasted our resources worth more than $400 billion,” Yildirim said. “These resources were wasted for nothing and they only left tears behind. If we invested $400 billion — and we spent $150 billion for investments over a decade — we could build 400 bridges over the Bosphorus or railways with lengths of 100,000 kilometres. Hopefully, we could get rid of that trouble and we could spend our resources for the future of our country.”

Security researchers, watchdog groups call for military spending transparency

A global security research organisation has added its voice to a collection of government budget watchdog groups in calling for Turkey to make its military budget smaller and more transparent.In a report authored by Nurhan Yenturk, a scholar at Istanbul Bilgi University, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) showed that as of 2012 Turkey’s military expenditure rate (2.35 percent of GDP) ranked 15th globally among countries with highest military spending rates.The study covers military expenditures from 2006-2012 and forecasts the figures for 2013-2015. It draws attention to the need for transparency and accountability in military expenditures with further parliamentary oversight and auditing, while it also calls for a reduction in the size of the army and a decrease in spending on personnel.The conclusions echo those of the Public Expenditures Monitoring Platform, a group of more than 50 civil society organisations in Turkey, which has monitored public expenditures since 2010. The group has drawn attention to increases in health, education and welfare programmes that could be achieved by trimming the military budget.Yenturk said that in 14 of the 16 years from 1988 to 2004, military spending outpaced the combined amounts spent on the Ministry of Education, the Council of Higher Education (YOK) and public universities.“After 2004, education spending raised above military spending. This long period of high military spending obviously had created a cumulative impact on current problems such as a growing unskilled labour force and low levels of labour productivity,” Yenturk told SES Türkiye.The report revealed that the ratio of the military expenditures has decreased since 2001.“The 2001 economic crisis and the rule of the Justice and Development Party [AKP] since late 2002 are main factors affecting the decrease. But after 2006 until 2014, except for 2009, the downward trend has stopped and the ratio of military spending to GDP remained constant,” Yenturk said.Sirin Unal and Oguz Kagan Koksal, AKP members of the parliamentary National Defence Commission, did not respond to SES Türkiye’s requests for comment.According to Yenturk, a decrease in military spending would create room for paying a significant number of uninsured citizens’ general health contributions by public support, while also helping households living in poverty.Due to a legislative change in 2010, the Turkish Court of Accounts audits military spending on parliament’s behalf. However, the publication of auditing reports on defence, security and intelligence institutions is restricted by secrecy rules, undermining transparency as well as parliamentary and civilian monitoring.A new law passed by the parliament in late February gave the military new economic privileges. All military facilities, officers’ clubs, hostels, training centres, as well as military museums and military clubs will be exempted from corporate taxes as well as real estate property taxes. The army will be also allowed to allocate its properties to foreign companies and organisations either by charging a fee or free of charge.Yenturk added that there is no meaningful performance-based auditing to assess the quantity and quality of public institutions’ services and to prevent them from wasting resources. But she did point out the contributions of the Public Expenditures Monitoring Platform, which sent a letter to parliament in 2012 comparing military and social expenditures. The Education Reform Initiative (ERG) under Istanbul’s Sabanci University is a member of the Public Expenditures Monitoring Platform.Emre Uckardesler, a policy analyst at ERG, told SES Türkiye that although the public expenditures devoted to education in Turkey have regularly increased during the 2000s, the current figures are still far from sufficient.“The OECD [Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development] average for public education expenditures is around 5.5 percent of the GDP. Turkey is still behind the OECD average,” Uckardesler said. “UNESCO recommends that countries with similar economic development levels to Turkey need to spend around 6 percent of the GDP on public education. By that criterion, Turkish figures are even less satisfactory.”“In Turkey education strategic plans and education budgets need to be prepared through a more participatory process. The education budget is largely prepared by public officials and politicians, with little involvement by stakeholders. Similarly, the level of accountability to public stakeholders needs to increase along with better feedback and monitoring mechanisms,” he added.Uckardesler also said there are signs of progress, as public schools started to register and report their budgets via electronic database, and the national school funding mechanism is becoming more simplified.“Thus, it is anticipated that in the near future funds allocated to individual schools will be more in line with and adequate to meet their needs,” he added.The SIPRI report states that while details about some military expenditures are available online — like the budget of the Ministry of Defence, or expenditures of General Staff, Gendarmerie General Command or the Defence Ministry’s Undersecretariat for the Defence Industry (SSM) — access to information about other issues is incomplete and sometimes impossible to find.The Defence Industry Support Fund, the Mechanical and Chemical Industry Corporation, military research and developments, and financial transfers to northern Cyprus for military purposes are partly disclosed to the greater public. The expenditure information about the Foundation to Strengthen the Turkish Armed Forces — which establishes partnerships with private defence companies and is one of their shareholders — and the pensions of retired army personnel are beyond oversight or are highly restricted.The SIPRI report also said the Defence Ministry should take on oversight of the Office of the Chief of General Staff and adds that “there should not be a separate judicial mechanism within the military.”Lale Sariibrahimoglu, a military affairs expert and columnist, said the lack of transparency and accountability in the defence sector is one of the main reasons why military expenditures are so high.“Despite being a NATO member, Turkey has not ensured full democratic control of its military,” Sariibrahimoglu told SES Türkiye. “If the transparency and a mechanism of accountability are established for the military expenditures, the ratio will decrease because the authorities would begin to allocate financial resources into the right places and in more smart ways due to the concern of giving its account to the greater public.”Sariibrahimoglu added that oversight of military expenditures is an important component of good governance, but Turkey has had high military spending since the establishment of the republic, and that the decisions have been beyond civilian and parliamentary control.Sariibrahimoglu also said the main criterion for any country’s military expenditures is its threat assessment.“However, a significant part of these evaluations is always kept secret from the civilian oversight in Turkey, while in Western democracies and in NATO countries, such assessments are shared with the public in general traits by the decision makers,” Sariibrahimoglu said. “Accordingly, military forces are deployed in a specific location and they are re-structured in line with the external threats.”According to the latest figures of NATO, the ratio of military expenditures to GDP is nearly 2.9 percent in all of NATO’s 27 member countries, while in Turkey this ratio is at 2.4 percent.“Especially since 2004, Turkey began to re-design its defence policies by cancelling some of the joint projects with the foreign companies in order to build its national battle tank and attack helicopter by its own resources. However, if the transparency and the accountability became the rule, such domestic projects would be much more resource-efficient,” Sariibrahimoglu said.She added that the authorities use the justification of “regional threats” as a motto to easily increase their military expenditures out of public oversight.“If the public is much more informed about the extent and the content of these expenditures, they will, for instance, start to interrogate why Turkey has begun buying only recently, for instance, mine resistant vehicles to use in the fight against terrorism despite a three-decade long low intensity warfare and why it hasn’t prioritised counter-terrorism projects over the purchase of conventional weapons,” Sariibrahimoglu said.Turkish officials have repeatedly drawn attention to the need for ending terrorism throughout the country in order to decrease military spending.Last year, Binali Yildirim, the former minister of transport, maritime affairs and communications, told reporters that the fight against terrorism in Turkey contributed to high military spending.“Because of terror, we wasted our resources worth more than $400 billion,” Yildirim said. “These resources were wasted for nothing and they only left tears behind. If we invested $400 billion — and we spent $150 billion for investments over a decade — we could build 400 bridges over the Bosphorus or railways with lengths of 100,000 kilometres. Hopefully, we could get rid of that trouble and we could spend our resources for the future of our country.”