They fed the people's money to interest

The Ministry of Treasury and Finance's budget statistics for the first half of the year reveal the enormous resources flowing into interest expenditures. The budget posted a deficit of 330.175 billion Turkish Lira in June and 980.478 billion Turkish Lira in the January-June period.

In the first half of the year, 1.111 trillion lira went to interest expenditures. Interest expenditures increased by 93.5 percent compared to the same period last year. The ratio of interest payments to tax revenue was 23 percent. Thus, of the 4.771 trillion lira in tax revenue collected between January and June, 23 lira out of every 100 lira went to interest expenditures.

In the January-June period, budget revenues increased by 46.1 percent compared to the same period last year, reaching 5.598 billion 580 million lira. Budget expenditures also increased by 43.7 percent during the same period, reaching 6.579 billion 58 million lira.

Record spending on aircraft leases

In June, when numerous major forest fires simultaneously raged, public budget spending on aircraft reached a record high. Following the sale of THK aircraft, which were controversial due to their disuse during the major forest fires, 1.1 billion lira was spent on aircraft leases in June alone. Half of the total spending of 2.25 billion lira between January and June was incurred in June alone.

Vehicle rentals, often cited as a wasteful item, saw a total of 432.989 million lira spent in June. Vehicle rental spending, which was 1.61 billion lira in the January-June period of last year, rose to 2.198 billion lira in this period.

'COVERED' EXCEEDS 6 BILLION LIRA

The Palace's spending reached 6.6 billion lira in the first half of the year. Only 39 percent of the initial allocation has been used. Additionally, 621 million lira was transferred in June as covert funding, known as the unaccountable item used as Erdoğan's "secret safe." This total amount was recorded as 6.15 billion lira between January and June. Including covert funding, the Palace's spending exceeded 12 billion lira.

670 MILLION LIRA TO THE YUNUS EMRE FOUNDATION

A total of 2.359 billion lira was transferred from the budget to nonprofit organizations. 562 million lira of this amount was transferred to unnamed organizations designated as "other." Additionally, the Yunus Emre Foundation, a nonprofit organization that came to the forefront with its nylon invoice scandal, received a 99 million lira transfer in June, bringing the total to 670 million lira.

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FIRE-FIGHTING PLANES SOLD, AIRCRAFT RENTALS EXPLODE (THOUSAND TL)

• January: 162,062

• February: 221,207

• March: 287,730

• April: 254,645

• May: 231,029

• June: 1,102,823

Total rentals from January to June: 2,259,495