Turkish public sector’s car acquisitions rise 10-fold in eight months

Neşe Karanfil - ANKARA

The public sector’s vehicle acquisitions saw record-high rises over this year. While around 59.8 million Turkish Liras worth of cars were bought for the sector in the first eight months of 2014, this figure rose to 628.5 million liras in the same period this year, and increase of more than 10-fold. 

The public sector spent 65.6 million liras for car acquisitions in July and 66.4 million liras in August, according to the latest budget realizations of the Finance Ministry. These figures were 5.9 million liras and 14.7 million liras July and August, respectively, in 2014. In this vein, a rise of around 6.6-fold was seen in the two-month period this year from the same two months of 2014. 

The public sector’s vehicle acquisitions have been rising dramatically over the last few years. The country paid 264.7 million liras for car acquisitions of the public sector in 2010, 450.2 million liras in 2011, 581.2 million liras in 2012, 755.9 million liras in 2013, and 953.7 million liras in 2014. 

The same increasing trend has also been the case for car rentals by the public sector. While the sector paid 217.2 million liras for rented cars in the first eight months of 2014, this figure rose to 264 million liras in the same period of this year.