İstanbul's New Mayor Promises to End Extravagance

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Ending extravagance was one of the main elements of Ekrem İmamoğlu's campaign before the local polls. After assuming office on June 27, he talked about the cost saving measures he will take in an interview with the Haber Global TV.

Imamoğlu said that they will strictly audit the companies of the municipality: "After we introduce the audit mechanism, we will begin from here: Savings."

Official cars is one of the areas İmamoğlu plans to save money: "We will quickly call all the cars and pile them in a field. The automobiles. Most of them are used by one or two people. We will see the quantity of those. We will see if they are worthy. I would like to state that the budget spared for renting luxurious cars in a large quantity causes a difficulty."

Talking about the municipality lodgements where the officials reside, İmamoğlu said, "The municipality has a lodgement where 14 family lives in 60 acres of land. Forty security guards work there. With just the expenses of this lodgement, we can build two student dormitories."

İmamoğlu also touched on the traffic problem in the city, saying that they will increase the share of sea transportation: "The critical point is making people easily reach the point where the sea transportation begins. If you can't provide access, sea transportation may not be meaningful."

The mayor further said that the Metropolitan Municipalirt has a consolidated budget of 60 billion liras and debt of 30 billion liras. "23.8 billion liras of expenditure budget was calculated. The income budget is 22 billion liras. Turkey's economy has also an effect on this. The money coming from the treasury dropped by 2 billion liras in the first six months of the year . (AS/VK)