Mardin Trustee Allegedly Gave Thousands of Lira Worth of Presents to Erdoğan, Ministers

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Appointed as a trustee to Mardin Metropolitan Municipality for the second time by the Ministry of Interior, Mardin Governor Mustafa Yaman allegedly gave hundreds of thousands of Turkish Lira worth of silverware to President and ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) Chair Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and ministers of the AKP.

As reported by Tunca Öğreten from the Deutsche Welle Türkçe, Governor Yaman bought 136 thousand 946 lira 73 kurush worth of silverware from the Fırat Silver shop in Mardin and presented it to President Erdoğan in the previous period. He also gave 39 thousand 883 lira 45 kurush worth of silverware to Minister of Interior Süleyman Soylu as a present.

The same documents show that during his time in office as a trustee, Mustafa Yaman bought 23 thousand 772 lira 52 kurush worth of silverware for the then Minister of National Education İsmet Yılmaz, silverware worth of 21 thousand 792 lira 44 kurush for Minister of National Defense Fikri Işık, 74 thousand 886 lira 89 kurush for Minister of Forestry and Water Affairs Veysel Eroğlu and silverware worth of 83 thousand 2017 lira 68 kurush for Minister of Youth and Sports Osman Aşkın Bak.

These documents also indicate that all these expenses were registered in the official records of the municipality and their invoices were kept in folders.

Authorities have not responded

Though Deutsche Welle Türkçe could contact the Fırat Silver store by phone, the personnel of the jeweler have rejected giving information about the issue, saying, "It is none of your business."

An officer from the Mardin Municipality has also rejected the purchase of silverware for the President and ministers of the AKP. Being told that there are documents proving the purchase, the officer has said, "Do you have documents of that? I will call you after asking our directors." However, the officer has not get into contact with the DW Türkçe after that.

266 thousand 760 lira worth of dinner for Soylu

The documents reported by Öğreten have documented a series of other expenditures made for the ministers and the President by the Mardin trustee in the previous period. Some of these expenditures are as follows:

* On January 19, 2019, 266 thousand 760 lira worth of dinner was given for Minister of Interior Süleyman Soylu and the ones accompanying him. The delegation accompanying Soylu consisted of 3 thousand 800 people.

* On February 1, 2019, another dinner was given for Minister of National Defense Hulusi Akar and the delegation accompanying him. The municipality paid 158 thousand 760 Turkish Lira for this dinner, hosting 2,100 people.

281 thousand lira car rental fee for Erdoğan's visit

The total car rental fee for President Erdoğan, ministers and MPs of the AKP is also over 1 million Turkish Lira. During Erdoğan's visit to Mardin in 2017, cars were rented for 281 thousand Turkish Lira.

Total debt of municipality: 620 million lira

It was Ahmet Türk, the dismissed Metropolitan Mayor of Mardin, who first raised concerns over the expenditures made at the Mardin Metropolitan Municipality when Yaman was in office as a trustee between 2016 and 2019.

Speaking to Artı TV news website, Türk stated that they had documents showing that Yaman bought hundreds of thousands of lira worth of presents.

The documents show that the municipality administered by Yaman has a debt of 620 thousand Turkish Lira and only 93 million lira in cash. (EKN/SD)

* 1 Turkish Lira (TRY) is 0.17 US Dollars (USD) as of 3.55 p.m. today.