The expenditures of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan have exceeded the outlay of any other president in the history of the Turkish Republic, increasing by 550 percent since his election in 2014.
In addition to 1.7 billion Turkish lira in expenditures by the Office of the President in 2018, the “discretionary fund” spending exceeded 3.5 billion lira in the same year, according to the Birgün daily’s reporting on Wednesday.
The figures were officially announced by the Ministry of Treasury and Finance.
In 2018 alone, the presidency exceeded the initial budget allocated to the office by 845.4 million Turkish lira.
Critics often refer to Erdoğan’s lavish lifestyle including a palace with over a thousand rooms, a private jet supposedly gifted by Qatar valued at over $500 million and a summer palace on Turkey’s pristine Marmaris Bay that is currently under renovation and expansion at the expense of private landowners in the area.